VISIONS OF THE FUTURE 



OTHER DISCOURSES 



/ 

0. B. FROTHINGHAM 



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NEW YORK 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

182 FIFTH AVENUE 
1879 



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TH* LIBRA**] 
OF CONORI*S| 

WASHINGTON 



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Copyright by 
P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

1879 



CONTENTS 



Life as Test of Creed i 

The Inspiration of Scripture ... 25 

Morals and Religion 49 

Religion and Immortality .... 77 
The Consolations of Rationalism . . .101 

The Demand of the Age on Religion . 127 

The Demand of Religion on the Age . . 147 

The Practical Value of Belief in God . 163 

The Real God ....... 185 

The Popular Religion 201 

The New Song 223 

Visions of the Future 249 



LIFE AS TEST OF CREED. 



I take a text this morning, but not from scripture, 
from Pope's Essay on Man. 

" For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight ; 
His can't be wrong whose life is in the right." 

The poem from which these lines are taken was 
written to give expression to the system of Lord 
Bolingbroke, a wit, statesman, courtier, man of 
fashion, and speculative philosopher of the last 
century. He was a leading " infidel " writer, a propa- 
gator of infidel opinions, a friend of Voltaire. 
His system was deistical, a form of natural relig- 
ion as opposed to revealed religion. He did not 
go so far as to say that no revelation from Deity 
was possible, but he did go so far as to say that no 
revelation could be proved by historical evidence. 
His criticisms on the bible, on the creeds of the 
church, on the institutions of religion as practiced 
in his day, were searching and severe. He lavished 
all the power of a cutting sarcasm on the supersti- 



2 LIFE AS TEST OF CREED. 

tion of his generation. His belief was in natural law ; 
his system had its root in the idea that the will of 
Deity expresses itself in the established habits of 
the universe, and that a faithful worship of Deity 
consisted, not in rites, or prayers, or priestly obser- 
vances, but in a faithful conformity with the con- 
ditions of life, a compliance with the laws of the 
universe, as they were understood. 

It is easy to see that the sentiment expressed 
in the lines which I have quoted from Pope's 
" Essay on Man " was of immense importance and 
reach. To say that the true worship is a life and 
not a creed, that the conflict over forms and modes 
of faith is useless, vain and harmful, that the test 
of complete observance of the divine laws is a 
noble natural character, strikes at the very root of 
all religious institutions and beliefs. To say this, 
is to claim for the world of experience, for the con- 
duct of life, the vital hearty interest that has here- 
tofore been given to matters that concern the 
supernatural world. It is to claim once more, nay, 
for the first time, honor, respect, and service for 
ordinary things. It is associating business, society, 
public and private life with sanctity. It is to re- 
call the thoughts, desires and purposes of mankind 
from things entirely out of their vision and beyond 
their reach, to things that lie immediately about 
them, that concern them in their daily walk 



LIFE AS TEST OF CREED. 3 

and conversation, and decide for them whether 
their lives in this world shall be good for something 
or good for nothing. The acceptance of a princi- 
ple like this, would work nothing less than a com- 
plete revolution in religious thought, feeling and 
observance. The instant the controlling forces of 
the world should accept as a leading principle the 
thoughts embodied in these lines of Pope, at once 
the current would flow away from the instituted 
observances of Christendom, and would apply all 
their power to turn the machinery which carries on 
society and the individual life. 

Thus far, therefore, in its general scope and 
bearing, the principle enunciated in the " Essay 
on Man " is of immeasurable importance. But 
when we take it to pieces, criticise it point by 
point, its weakness becomes evident. " His can't 
be wrong whose life is in the right." Whose life is 
in the right ? Does not the principle assume that 
somebody's life — your life, perhaps — yours as well 
as anybody's, is the standard by which faith may 
be tested? Does it not assume that some one type 
of person is to be allowed to set up his life, or per- 
haps his conception of what life should be, his ideal 
of character, as the rule by which all creeds are to 
be judged? The looseness of thinking betrayed in 
such a position is something extraordinary. It 
seems to be imagined that it is easier to determine 



4 LIFE AS TEST OF CREED. 

what Tightness, rectitude, equity, justice, goodness 
are, than to determine what truth is ; that it is 
easier to decide what conduct ought to be under 
any particular circumstances, than it is to decide 
what we should reasonably think about the order 
and constitution of the world. It is true that we 
can never arrive at absolutely correct opinions on 
questions relating to the order and constitution of 
the world ; the search for truth is exceedingly long 
and difficult. Nay, to find the ultimate truth is more 
than this generation will ever succeed in, or many 
generations to come. Indeed, it is beyond human 
quest, so far as we can see. Still, it is possible to 
strike upon certain leading principles ; it is possible 
to get on the track of some leading ideas ; it is 
possible to find a key which may open some of the 
chambers of knowledge. It is possible to reach 
reasonable conclusions on many deep problems of 
life. But who shall say what goodness is, what the 
normal type of character is under existing human 
circumstances ? 

Take any particular case which may occur to you, 
a case touching immediate conduct on the plane of 
daily experience. Is it so easy to know what one 
ought to do, how one ought to conduct himself, 
how one should bear himself towards this or that 
person ? The moment we touch upon a question of 
character, the moment we raise a rule of conduct, 



LIFE AS TEST OF CREED. 5 

that moment we are lost in perplexities. The 
practical issues are not only the most pressing and 
momentous, they are also the most complicated. 

It is not easier to find out what is good than it 
is to find out what is true. When the apostle 
Paul says, " Prove all things, hold fast to that 
which is good," we imagine him to be saying very 
simple and conclusive things. And what he says, 
was simple and conclusive as he meant it ; for his 
notion of what was good kept within the narrow 
utilities, proprieties and moralities of his small 
christian community. But with us the case is much 
more intricate. To find out what is good baffles 
the keenest mind. 

Furthermore, how many lives are entitled to be 
called " correct " lives? I mean straight lives, that 
consistently hold together, that are organized on a 
principle, that accord with an idea? How many 
lives are more than fragments ? We live morally 
from hand to mouth, feeling our way among senti- 
ments. We are creatures of tradition, blown about 
by every wind of doctrine. To-day we feel thus, 
to-morrow we may feel otherwise. Our purposes 
are halting ; our intentions faint ; our convictions 
flag. Our controlling ideas are not the same from 
month to month. How few people there are who 
plow a straight furrow, — we will not say through a 
crooked world, but through such a world as theirs 



6 LIFE AS TEST OF CREED. 

is to plow in. It may be very limited ; it may be 
very smooth ; it may be very tranquil. A sudden 
flaw of wind strikes our little vessel ; it careens and 
goes down. A sorrow, a disappointment, a stroke 
of calamity finds us entirely unprepared. We 
thought we knew something ; we thought we stood 
upon a basis ; we thought we had a firm hand upon 
the helm, but we had not. It was a dream, a 
notion, a legend, which we had read in a book, a 
precept we heard in a sermon. It was a fiction 
that ran through us like an idle rill, gurgled 
through our sentiments, but gave no music to our 
life. From how many living people, from how 
many known characters would you undertake to 
infer a creed ? Whose qualities guarantee wisdom ? 
What dispositions authenticate beliefs ? Of the vari- 
ous creeds, notions, guesses, scraps from all sorts of 
scripture, which possess any particular mind, how 
many are definitely traceable to the moral attributes 
of their authors ? Will the character of the wisest 
teacher justify his teachings ? The looseness of think- 
ing on this point is amazing. Men are continually as- 
sociating characters and opinions in the most lawless 
manner, connecting good beliefs with bad morals, 
and bad beliefs with good morals in a way to drive 
a sane man wild. It is even common to associate 
one man's conduct with an other man's creed, as 
we see men hold the faith of a pastor answerable 



LIFE AS TEST OF CREED. 7 

for the misbehaviour of a parishioner. This is 
done constantly, as macter of course, by thousands 
of people, in the most enlightened modern commu- 
nities. The truth is that to reason from life back to 
creed is an exceedingly difficult task ; an achieve- 
ment quite beyond the reach of the ordinary mind. 
Whose life will you take as the standard ? Alex- 
ander Pope's, the man who wrote the lines quoted 
above ? Pope is said to have had some excellent 
qualities. He loved his mother, was faithful to her 
in her old age, took care of her when she was poor. 
He had a sort of clever capacity for friendship. 
He is known to have told the truth several times. 
But he was envious, cross-grained, cunning, re- 
vengeful. Let a friend say an uncomplimentary 
word about his verses, and he would put him on the 
pillory of his satire, and make him contemptible 
to all living people. He could hate with a tenacity 
and bitterness of rancor which is seldom exemplified. 
He wrote the " Essay on Man " to glorify the 
system of a noble friend and patron. But as for 
the system itself when it was professed by vulgar 
infidels about town, authors whose writings were of 
no account, men who were not in fashionable 
society, his interest in it abated. Pope was not es- 
pecially deferential to such as they were. On the 
contrary, he ranked them among the dunces and fools 
and poured his contempt upon their miserable heads. 



8 LIFE AS TEST OF CREED. 

" His can't be wrong whose life is in the right." 
Whose life will you take as your standard ? Boling- 
broke was no saint, though rich enough to afford 
to be good. I am thinking now of one of the 
grandest men that this continent has produced ; a 
man who went from among us four years ago ; a 
man of unusual grandeur and stateliness of char- 
acter ; a monumental man ; heroic, and after a 
fashion, saintly ; a man whom future men will 
probably think more highly of than living men do. 
In his early manhood he left prospects, wealth, the 
splendor of a successful career which was offered to 
him, troops of friends, the charm of society, all that 
the world calls precious, left it all, left it without a 
murmur, never was heard to complain of the sacri- 
fice, and, gave himself with all the strength of his 
intellect, with all the massiveness of his will, with 
all the consecretion of his character to the cause 
which, in his generation, was considered the mean- 
est, the ignoblest, the least dignified and reputable 
of any that invited sympathy ; left great friends, who 
cut him in the street, passed by on the other side 
when they saw him coming, and, for thirty years, 
never faltered, never blanched, when the demand 
for heroism was made upon him. The steadfastness 
of his principle in evil times made him an outcast 
from his country and compelled him to drag a 
wretched painful body from land to land. Blows fell 



LIFE AS TEST OF CREED. 9 

on his n.iked head. He stood under the dripping 
scorn of the Scribes and Pharisees of his generation. 
This man I never think of without feeling that I 
stand in the presence of one of the human immortals. 
Shall we take him as our normal character? But 
men said of him, and say of him now, and will 
always say of him, that he was unsympathetic, un- 
emotional, cold, that he lacked imagination, tender- 
ness and force of feeling, that he was exclusive and 
overbearing and tyrannical in the assertion of his 
ethical principles. Men who knew him well, said 
that he rode on a splendid charger like a peerless 
knight, unhorsing the foe, but trampling under foot 
those whom he should have respected and spared. 
It was objected to him that his criticism was 
unsparing, that his feelings were ungenerous. 
If these judgments are true, we have not the 
consent even of his own generation to the au- 
thority of this type of character. The unsym- 
pathetic character is not the normal one. The 
man of conscience must also be a man of heart. 
Whose life shall you take ? I think of another 
man, a friend of this last, yet so unlike him that 
they seemed to belong to different spheres ; a man 
spacious, expansive, diffusive, fluent, glowing, hu- 
man ; one whose windows and doors stood ever open ; 
a man of vast and spontaneous sympathy, forth- 
putting, exuberant ; a man of great wealth which 



10 LIFE AS TEST OF CREED. 

he distributed with both hands, in sums large 
and small ; one who listened to every cry, whose 
eye detected the obscure form of suffering, whose 
heart actually went out in charity and benefi- 
cence towards the weak, the poor, the miserable, 
without regard to their personal or social condi- 
tion. What shall we say of such a man as this? 
Was his life a life " in the right ? " Is the phil- 
anthropist, the man of heart, the one from whom 
we can reason back from life to creed ? At first 
blush it might seem so. But men said of him 
that he lacked judgment, that he was visionary, 
that he was carried away by his emotions, a senti- 
mentalist ; that his gifts hurt as many as they 
helped; that he beyond question meant to bless, but 
did his blessing so inconsiderately that the benedic- 
tion ended in something like a curse. 

Whose life is " in the right ? " Take two private 
lives : I have spoken thus far of public characters — 
take two private lives. I have in mind a young man. 
He has right intentions, excellent purposes, a private 
character with which one cannot find fault. He has 
taste and talent, both educated. He has a business 
which he understands and in which he achieves dis- 
tinction. He has friends many. He is popular 
among his companions, open-handed, open-hearted, 
an admirable youth of sterling qualities. But he is 
loose-ended careless, slipshod in his ways, improv- 



LIFE AS TEST OF CREED. II 

ident of money and time, pulpy in the substance of 
his nature; he is unstable as water; cannot standby 
principle ; cannot adhere to the simple truth ; cannot 
move straight on, but fluctuates, varies, goes this 
way, goes that way, is attractive at times, and yet 
has something about him which does not command 
respect. No, that life " is not in the right." Some- 
thing is wanting. 

I have in my mind another. He is very strict 
and conscientious, literal and prosaic ; true to the 
letter; never will swerve by so much as a hair's 
breath from the exact line of veracity, sees with the 
utmost distinctness what is immediately before his 
vision, and follows it regardless of consequences. 
He is all conscience ; but the conscience is indi- 
vidual, personal ; it is conscience without the con, 
without the human connection, without sympathy, 
without consideration ; conscience that does not take 
in what is due to other people but only what is due 
to himself ; conscience without the science, because 
the determination of knowledge which the conscien- 
tiousness implies is a strict observance of the dictate 
of his own feeling, the expression of a single will. 
Narrow, therefore, extremely narrow ; strong, pene- 
trating, absolute, capable, in a sense, grand, still 
contracted and perverse. Is that life " in the right ?" 
Is that the life from which one can safely infer a 
human creed ? Not so. It is too exclusive, too lim. 



12 LIFE AS TEST OF CREED. 

ited, too personal, too individual. There is not 
enough sense of the relations which one sustains to 
all the rest. 

" His can't be wrong whose life is in the right." 
Whose life we ask again ? The Hebrews say the 
life of Moses; the Christians say the life of Jesus; 
the Hindoos say the life of Buddha ; the Chinese 
say the life of Confucius. Which? It is confessed 
that there is no universal type of character. There 
is no person, however magnificently endowed, before 
whom the whole race kneels. We are but frag- 
ments. We are merely conjectures. The best are 
but studies in the perfect character, which is not 
national, but human, not of a race but of mankind. 

Therefore, I repeat, it is all but hopeless, it is 
quite hopeless, in fact, to reason directly from 
conduct to creed, from character to belief. It is 
easier to reason the other way. They are not all 
graceless zealots who contend and earnestly contend, 
(not for mere modes of faith, not for empty forms 
and definitions of belief, but) for those strong ideas, 
for those immortal principles, for those steadfast 
convictions that take hold of the very roots of the 
mind. Most people, men and women, as we know 
them, are characterless ; have no personal beliefs, 
have no vital creeds ; but whenever you see a man 
or woman of genuine character, a man or woman 
whose life stands for something, be sure there lies a 



LIFE AS TEST OF CREED. 1 3 

creed behind the conduct; some view of man, some 
theory of life, present, past, future, some conception 
of the controlling forces of the moral world, some 
apprehension of the tendency of things, which sways 
the will though the man hardly suspects it ; some 
deep conviction which lifts him up, sustains and 
consoles him, though he may not know from whence 
the strength or consolation comes. 

Take the creed of Christendom, for example. It 
is very simple. The substance of the creed of 
Christendom may be described in a few words. The 
variations are numberless ; the cardinal points are 
the same. The sects can be counted by the hun- 
dreds, but the fundamental ideas are few in num- 
ber and distinctly marked : — that man is in a helpless 
degenerate condition, unable by the natural faculties 
to find the narrow way of truth, unable by the 
natural force of his heart to achieve goodness, 
unable by sheer determination of will to maintain 
justice, — a fallen demoralized being, hopeless, help- 
less, groveling on the earth which is his dungeon. 
Not a home, not a noble arena of conflict, not an 
observatory of knowledge, a temple of worship, but 
a waste and weary pilgrimage, in the course of 
which he must go timidly and warily, finding his way 
by light that comes only from above. A God — per- 
sonal, individual, gives him direction in his wander- 
ing, places him under tutelage, educates him. 



'4 LIFE AS TEST OF CREED. 

controls him, and by a long wearisome course of 
discipline, restores him at last to a felicity beyond 
the grave. A perfectly simple scheme of things, 
but how tremendously strong! how emphatic ! It 
is plainly impossible that any rational creature 
should believe this, and not feel the force of it in 
every drop of his blood. 

Now if we study Christianity deeply in the ages 
where the faith has prevailed, we find types of char- 
acter corresponding to it that reflect all its lights and 
shadows, showing the grandeur and the loveliness, 
the gloom and the glory as the landscape repeats 
the changing moods of the skies. But what sort of 
life is it that answers to the christian creed ? It is 
on the whole, an arrested life. The man who be- 
lieves such a creed, must seldom smile save in sad- 
ness and compassion. He is devoted, firm, resolute. 
Feeling himself to be a person whose place is di- 
vinely appointed, whose work is providentially set, 
he goes through the world like a spy through a 
hostile camp, in disguise, looking neither to the right 

nor to theleft,keepinghimself well under control, not 
allowing his eye to wander or his thought to swerve. 
Pleasure he despises, amusement is his scorn. 
Luxury? comfort? these are of the evil one. Such 
work as God bids him to do, building, buying, sell- 
ing, trading, learning— what not ? he will do with a 
grim determination, without play, without elasticity 



LIFE AS TEST OF CREED. 1 5 

of feeling, without sense of its being anything else 
than a divine discipline. He will do it as a thing he 
is required to do. Not for the benefit of mankind, 
not as a contribution to the welfare of the world, 
but as a penance laid upon him, a worm of the dust, 
to fill his little place and discharge the duties of his 
short hour, until his place shall be vacant by his 
death and his hour be ended. This man is compar- 
atively indifferent to what is called Truth. He 
cares little or nothing about art, disregards science, 
is careless of literature. The one book that he 
studies, studies on his knees, prays over, weeps over, 
is the bible, — the word of God. 

That is his guide. That contains all that is es- 
sential for a rational and immortal being to know. 
That throws the light upon his faith ; that keeps 
before him the promise of salvation. He will give 
money to send it abroad, contributing of his sub- 
stance to foreign and home missionary enterprises, 
snatching souls from perdition, and defeating the 
wiles of Satan. He will give his full share into the 
treasuries of charitable institutions to relieve pov- 
erty and suffering, to alleviate the temporal lot of 
mankind , but his charity is not of the heart ; it is 
not born of natural sympathy. It does not flow 
from a full fountain of affection. It is rather the 
charity that is appointed and inculcated by the 
gospel. It is enjoined, decreed by divine texts. 



1 6 LIFE AS TEST OF CREED. 

It looks to the spiritualizing of man, to the saving 
of his soul, to the rescue of the lost from hell. It 
is a means of grace to the giver, and an aid of faith 
to the receiver. The temporal lot of mankind is on 
this plan, of secondary importance. What matters 
it whether men are a little richer or a little poorer, 
externally more or less comfortable, socially more 
or less privileged, when, in a few years at the most, 
it must all be over, and the everlasting ages re- 
main for the enjoyment of heaven ? 

This type of character which we have seen il- 
lustrated over and over again in every section of 
Christendom, among Catholics, among Protestants, 
among Protestants of every name, this type of 
character, peculiar, strong, clean-cut, corresponds 
closely with the severe uncompromising creed 
which has been preached for nearly two thousand 
years. 

Now, take the opposite creed, the creed that I 
humbly try to explain and interpret from Sunday 
to Sunday in this place, — the creed of evolution. 
The opposite Creed I say, — for it proceeds from a 
different beginning, looks towards a different end, 
continues over a different course. The substance 
of this creed may also be expressed in a few 
words. In the detail of interpretation it allows 
of great differences ; but the substance is perfectly 
simple, and it is this, that an unknown and un- 



LIFE AS TEST OF CREED. 17 

searchable force lying behind creation projects and 
impels it ; that the course of things has been from 
the lowest rudimental beginning, onward and up- 
ward to the present point of attainment ; that the 
march of progress is destined to pass beyond this 
point to unimaginable splendors. The world man 
lives in is growing, — is a-making, improves from 
year to year, — ay, from day to day, and the race of 
man is creating it. Man is the living creator ; 
man is the actual caretaker ; man is the imme- 
diate practical providence. In this scheme the 
historical movement of the world depends not 
upon a personal individual will outside the world, 
that controls the mechanism and touches the 
springs, but upon the organized force of humanity 
which drives the wheels. 

Now, what sort of a character is it likely to be 
that is based upon a creed like this? Exactly the 
opposite in most cardinal respects from that which 
is typical of Christendom. In the first place, the 
holder of this creed is not, cannot be an ascetic. 
He is not grim, austere, or uncheerful. He does 
not skulk or cower through existence. ■ He walks 
through it like a man with erect form. He believes 
in himself and in the varieties and potencies of 
selfhood. He cannot persuade himself that one 
particular type of will, sentiment, or disposition is 
noble or precious, but is certain that all types have 



1 8 LIFE AS TEST OF CREED. 

their place and their function. The artist, the 
architect, the merchant, the financier, the inventor, 
men of all trades, men of all pursuits and talents, 
men of every variety of temperament and every 
species of gift, are equally required to carry on 
the work of society. Therefore there is no con- 
tempt, no spirit of detraction or depreciation, but 
a large and generous sympathy with human suffer- 
ing and endeavor, an attempt to understand opin- 
ions and faiths, to take systems at their best, to 
allow for every measure and species of force that 
each can throw. This man is perpetually insecure 
about the final and absolute truth. He is not 
one of the " graceless zealots " who " fight for 
modes of faith," but he is one of the earnest people 
who contend with all their weight for the principles 
of faith. He wishes to know more from day to 
day, to cast off prejudice, to correct ignorance, to 
mend his creed. He believes in having a better 
creed in detail the day after to-morrow than he has 
to-day. The substance of it always remains the 
same. Therefore he reads, studies and endeavors 
to learn what reasonable men have to say, what the 
philosophic men have to say, what the men of 
affairs have to say, gathering in whatever may en- 
rich his mind, increase his power, become tributary 
to the streams of motive which bear him on, aiming 
to become acquainted with the best thoughts of 



LIFE AS TEST OF CREED. 19 

the best men on the most important subjects. 
Such a man instead of being the devotee of a par- 
ticular system, instead of being wedded to a special 
creed or dogma, keeps his mind open and hospitable 
to different forms of truth. 

As regards his charity, it is simply human. His 
interest being in the conditions of this life, in the 
estate of this world, in the culture and advancement 
of living people, in the problems which the age 
submits, in the laws of character, and the conditions 
of society, he devotes himself to these. His inter- 
est is in the working out of problems in which the 
men of his generation have much at stake, problems 
which require the largest intellectual view, the 
farest play of reason, and also the undistracted 
activity of the various moral forces. He looks to 
a future, but it is a future for humanity in this 
world, — in a future that is to result in some 
measure from the spirit of his own life and the 
power of his own achievement. 

With this purpose before him he reverses some of 
the cardinal principles of the old faith. That 
preaches content ; this preaches discontent. That 
enjoins submission ; this inculcates effort. That 
recommends reliance on superhuman powers ; this 
urges reliance on human resources. That lays 
emphasis on resignation to the will of heaven ; 
this exalts energy, determination, fortitude, resolu- 



20 LIFE AS TEST OF^ CREED. 

tion. That praises contrition ; this encourages 
revolt. That admonishes that man can do nothing, 
that God must do all ; this never tires of repeating 
that man must do everything, that God, except 
through man, does nothing. On the intermediate, 
practical plane, the two systems correspond. They 
both countenance honesty. The believers in both 
systems agree on the propriety of paying their 
debts, telling the truth, being faithful to their 
neighbors. 

Both, too, though on different grounds and in 
different temper, applaud and celebrate the senti- 
ments of humility, meekness, aspiration, which are 
the common possessions of all faiths, the common 
characteristics of all nobleness. There is a tender, 
touching aspect to the religion of evolution, and 
to the character which corresponds to it. The 
genius of the faith is sympathetic, compassionate, 
gentle, merciful. There is a place in it for Jesus, 
for Francis d'Assisi, for saints and sisters of char- 
ity. Who ever feels that his thought, will, character, 
deed has force in helping the world on, making 
it easier for somebody else to live, lightening some- 
body's else burden, lifting somebody's else cross; 
who ever can feel this and not have a fund of in- 
spiration pouring into his heart strong enough to 
lift him out of his stupidity and sloth, and make 
him resolute to do his best, be it much or little, be 



LIFE AS TEST OF CREED. 21 

it with hand, or heart, or will, be it with pen or 
sword, be it with the glistening tear of pity, with 
the smiling face of encouragement or the gentle 
voice of hope? No one can feel this responsibility 
without feeling quickened with motive to meet it, 
at least wishing it were in his power to be a helper. 
Such a wish will be father to a thought, the thought 
will result in endeavor, and the endeavor will suc- 
ceed. The seeds of a new character, the germs of 
a new life will be planted. The cry of sorrow, the 
call of valor, the complaint of suffering, the moan 
of loneliness and pain, the wail of agony from the 
breaking heart come with fearful distinctness to his 
ear. If they do not touch his heart, then no strain 
from a mythological heaven will ever do it. 

Yes, if one considers how his indolence, careless- 
ness, waywardness, his waste of time, squandering of 
opportunities may depress the springs of hope, and 
withdraw force from the general will that bears the 
race onward, make it harder to answer life's ques- 
tion, harder to solve life's problem, harder for suffo- 
cating creatures to draw the breath of happiness, 
the reflection must awaken feelings akin to peni- 
tence and remorse, feelings of sorrow and regret 
deepening into contrition that he should be among 
the faithless when there is so much need of fidelity. 
Is not life worth living for one who can believe that 
he lives in a world organized as we know this world 



22 LIFE AS TEST OF CREED. 

of ours to be, with the quenchless stars illuminating 
his night heavens, the unceasing and unswerving 
sun inviting daily to new fields of existence, the 
height and glory and stupendous majesty of the 
world in full view from year to year, the unspent 
and undiminished powers of vitality, pressing into 
every atom of matter and mind? Is it not worth 
while to be in a world where there are endless ques- 
tions to be asked and answered, endless problems 
waiting for solution, where there is nobody who 
does not need something that we can give, and the 
greatest are indebted to the smallest for some ines- 
timable gift ? Where, to the prophets of light and 
life and immortality the common toiler gives the 
sustenance of bread ? the life of the body for the 
life of the soul ? Is it not something to feel that 
when we have done all our utmost and laid ourselves 
down to our quiet sleep, the everlasting forces will 
still go on, making the world more and more beau- 
tiful and the lot of man happier and happier as they 
near the final consumation to which we have added 
our little trifle of help? 

" His can't be wrong whose life is in the right." 
Let those who entertain a creed so magnificent 
as this try to live up to it, make a point of basing 
their life upon it, and the lives that have been so 
hackneyed and tiresome will once more blaze with 
light, and we shall find that it is not a difficult thing 



LIFE AS TEST OF CREED. 23 

any more to reason back and forth from noblest life 
to noblest belief, from noblest belief to noblest 
life. 



THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 



The subject of discussion this morning is the in- 
spiration of the scriptures. I do not venture upon 
any definition of the doctrine, for no definition that 
I or any other could make would be satisfactory 
to the evangelical world. The state of orthodox 
opinion by this time has become so uncertain that 
no statement of any cardinal dogma satisfies the 
great number of people. 

The Scripture is commonly called the " Word of 
God," but how much is included in the phrase 
" word of God " is left to individual interpretation. 
The language of the great creeds, however warm 
and earnest, is still loose and vague ; left so pur- 
posely for the interpretation of those who deal 
with the explanation of the creeds. The people 
generally, in Protestant churches, interpret the doc- 
trine with great literalness and exactness, and un- 
derstand by the inspiration of the bible, its complete 



26 THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 

inspiration ; not only the divine perfection of every 
religious sentiment, but the superhuman character 
of every thought, of every statement of opinion. 

The doctrine commonly preached in evangelical 
churches is the doctrine of literal inspiration. This 
doctrine, it is fair to say, is abandoned by the best 
thinkers and scholars, even of the " orthodox" per- 
suasion. There are many men in the pulpit and 
out of the pulpit in evangelical churches, who make 
large deduction from the popular faith ; who qualify 
greatly and essentially the doctrine that obtains in 
the orthodox community ; though on the other 
hand, there are distinguished scholars that hold the 
belief in inspiration so austerely and closely that it 
cannot be defended on critical grounds. The doc- 
trine as held by the wisest of the popular teachers, 
amounts in substance to this, that the scriptures 
are inspired, not in regard to the truths of 
science, of intellectual philosophy, of astronomy or 
history, but solely in regard to those truths that 
pertain to the salvation of the soul, truths, that is, 
in the moral and spiritual order. But even thus 
narrowly construed, the doctrine seems a strange 
one, and must strike an unprejudiced 'mind as being 
singular, in view of certain obvious facts. 

In the first place, it probably never would occur 
to the unsophisticated mind that so large a collec- 
tion of books could be inspired. The books of the 



THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 



27 



old testament number thirty-nine. The books of 
the new testament number twenty-seven, sixty-six 
in all. Is it quite credible that so large a collection 
of writings, covering so large a space of time and 
such extensive areas of thought, should be, not 
merely dominated by a particular type of doctrine, 
not simply pervaded by a single thread of opinion, 
but animated by the same tone of sentiment, char- 
acterized by the same cast of conviction, saturated 
with a common feeling of hope and veneration from 
first to last ? The Atlantic cable runs from Europe 
to America along the bed of the ocean ; but it is 
carefully protected from abrasion against the rocks, 
annoyance from the beasts that inhabit the deep, 
and corrosion from the rust, in order that the 
slightest whisper may pass from continent to con- 
tinent undisturbed. But can we suppose that the 
breathed whispers of the holy ghost have run through 
the spaces of two thousand years undisturbed by 
the currents of time, unaffected by jarring thoughts 
and wild disputations of the intellectual ocean 
through which the voice has passed ? Is not prob- 
ability overwhelmingly against such a belief? 

Consider again how long a time it has taken to 
form the collection of books which we call the 
scriptures. A thousand years, at the shortest com- 
putation, were required to produce the books of 
the old testament. Fifteen hundred years were 



28 THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 

necessary to complete the collection of the new 
testament. The task of selection and arrangement 
was performed under the greatest difficulties, hesi- 
tatingly, doubtfully, without the help of trained 
criticism, amid much misgiving and sharp contro- 
versy. Books were let in, books were thrown out 
apparently without critical or philosophical reason. 
For one hundred and fifty years there was no new 
testament whatever. There was no collection of 
Christian writings as distinct from Jewish, until 
several hundred years after the birth of Christ had 
elapsed. Can we believe that books thus collected, 
thus precariously preserved and loosely grouped, 
thus left apparently at the mercy of ignorance, 
dogmatism, partisanship, sectarian jealousy, pas- 
sion, were dictated by the holy spirit, were per- 
vaded by it, controlled by it so as to communicate 
nothing but truth ? The supposition is, on the face 
of it, astounding. 

Consider again that this dogma of the inspiration 
of the bible was one of the very last to be adopted 
by the church. The earliest controversies turned on 
the points of evangelical doctrine connected with 
the scheme of redemption, Trinity, the Christ, the 
depravity of man, the issues of the hereafter. The 
decree pronouncing the scripture inspired, came 
when every other dogma had been disposed of. 
Did the holy spirit wait all this time before it 



THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 29 

sealed and authenticated the records of its own 
revelation ? Are we to receive on credit, as pub- 
lished by authority of the eternal mind, documents 
which the human mind allowed to rest in uncer- 
tainty, to lie in obscurity, to remain in doubt, for 
fifteen hundred years ? 

Consider again that in the narrowest interpreta- 
tion of the doctrine of the inspiration of the bible, 
we are met with insuperable difficulties. Even on 
moral and religious themes, the bible is not in 
accord with itself. There is no consent of doctrine ; 
there is no sympathy of sentiment ; there is no uni- 
form law or promise or gospel. Are we to believe 
that the writer of Proverbs was inspired when he 
advised to " give strong drink unto him that is 
ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of 
heavy hearts?" Does God bid man to " drink and 
forget his poverty, and remember his misery no 
more?" Ave we to suppose that Moses and Samuel 
were inspired when they pronounced their harsh 
decrees against backsliders and recusants, called 
down the judgments of heaven upon malcontents, 
and even smote the people by thousands with the 
sword ? Are we to believe that the author of the 
book of Ecclesiastes was inspired when he insinuated 
doubts against the immortality of the soul ? Is 
every dogma in regard to nature and the attributes 
of providence and of God to be accepted as inspired, 



30 THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 

although it be radically inconsistent with reason, 
and irreconcilable with fundamental ideas of faith ? 

It can be shown that the idea of God underwent 
changes, and passed through a series of intellectual 
transformations in the mental growth of the Jewish 
people ; and these changes are plainly recorded in 
the bible. If the Holy Spirit dictated the changes, 
it must have animated the mind from whose activity 
they proceeded. It guarantees then the law of de- 
velopment. Before we can accept the inspiration of 
the Scripture on the ground that the moral and re- 
ligious ideas contained therein are implanted or war- 
ranted by the holy ghost, we must meet difficulties 
more formidable than any in criticism. 

It is useless, in my judgment, to argue against a 
belief so strange, so irrational as that of the inspir- 
ation of the bible. It is not matter for argument. 
All the evidence is on the side of the opposition. 
Taking the question on its literary merits, there is 
little or nothing to be said in defense of the inspir- 
ation of the scriptures. Instead, therefore, of de- 
bating for or against the dogma, let me undertake 
to tell, if I can, how such a strange dogma arose in 
the beginning. How did men ever come to believe 
that this collection of writings was of superhuman 
origin ? How did such a persuasion gain currency 
in the church ? It certainly was not on account of 
the literary excellence of any portion of the bible, 



THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 3 1 

because its literary excellence has never been widely 
appreciated, and is not yet exalted as a primary char- 
acteristic. It is not on account of the peculiarity of 
the moral teaching in the bible, for maxims as noble, 
as lofty, as pure, are found in other and older scrip- 
tures belonging to nations of a different stock. It 
is not on account of the sublimity of the religious 
conceptions in the bible, for conceptions quite as 
majestic are to be found among sages and prophets 
of the Hindoo and the Persian race, who delivered 
their oracles of wisdom before the richest portions 
of the old testament were written. 

The dogma was created for a purpose, and was 
deliberately imposed upon mankind. It was started 
for popular effect. It was built up, inculcated, es- 
tablished for motives of policy. It is not difficult 
to vindicate this position. It happened in thiswise. 
When the second detachment of Jews were sent by 
orders of King Xerxes to Jerusalem to reinstate 
the Hebrew civilization there, it was doubtless for 
political purposes. In order that the Persian king 
might have in that particular part of his Empire 
a bulwark against the enemies of the kingdom to 
the north, and the enemies of the kingdom at the 
south, he deputed Ezra the scribe, a man of great 
learning, high reputation and burning zeal, to lead 
the company of returning exiles back to the old 
sites to restore the ancient state. He went, bear- 



32 THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 

ing letters of plenary authority from the king, forti- 
fied with an abundant treasury, and backed by the 
support of the vast oriental monarchy behind him. 
He went with about eleven hundred families, the 
best of the Jews in Babylon. His purpose was 
avowedly, to restore the Hebrew state, to rebuild 
Jerusalem. With this understanding so much power 
was committed to him. He was a man of purpose, 
full of the Hebrew spirit; a new vision of prosperity 
and glory for his people shone upon his mind. The 
first thing he did on his arrival and recognition was 
to separate the true Jews from the hostile and in- 
different ; to gather together in close confederacy 
those who were faithful in their allegiance to the 
Hebrew traditions and institutions. His policy was 
exclusive, narrow, austere, in a sense, despotic. 
Such of the Jewish residents in. Palestine as had 
formed connections by marriage with the heathen 
people lying about them, were forbidden, in the 
name of the Lord, to maintain such connection ; 
and such was his influence, through the powers 
bestowed on him by the Persian monarch, the 
sufficiency of his wealth and the moral sway of 
his conviction, that he succeeded in compelling the 
greater number of the Jews on the soil of Palestine 
to put away their wives. Fanaticism justified the 
policy. Misery followed of course. The deed was 
arbitrary in conception and cruel in execution. It 



THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 33 

provoked fierce resentment, but it was necessary 
for the inauguration of a national policy ; it was 
necessary to the revival of the Jewish state, which 
Ezra had undertaken. 

This occurred five hundred years, we will say, 
before the coming of the Christ. To support his 
policy, to carry out his work, to complete his plans, 
Ezra collected such fragments of Hebrew literature 
as already existed and served his purpose, and pub- 
lished what was called the Law ; this collection he 
caused to be read, under the most solemn auspices, 
to the assembled people, day after day, through the 
whole of a festival time, The tradition was started 
that this collection had been miraculously formed ; 
that a supernatural guidance had directed, a super- 
natural authority sealed the work. 

Ezra passed away. A generation succeeded of dis- 
cord, doubt and disintegration. About thirty years 
later Nehemiah was sent, a Jew, of Susa, a man of 
patriotic zeal, of high standing and reputation in 
the Persian court. He followed in the footsteps <>f 
Ezra, and with a narrower purpose, a more austere 
will. He was a harsh, self-righteous man, according 
to his own account. In the so-called book of Ne- 
hemiah one may read all about him, how he pur- 
sued the same policy that his predecessor had 
adopted ; how he too demanded that the foreign 
wives should be put away, that the Sabbath should 



34 THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 

be kept holy, that all the Jewish festivals should be 
observed ; how he continued the practice of Ezra 
by consecrating and enlarging the collection of 
scripture, and setting it up as a main pillar of the 
Hebrew state. 

The bible was not formed in the interest of uni- 
versalism, but in the interest of ecclesiasticism. The 
prophetic spirit was gone. The fervor, the impulse 
of the Hebrew people had died out. Nothing re- 
mained but policy, art, statemanship. The priestly 
temper had become supreme. To rebuild the tem- 
ple, to reinstate the church, to re-establish the hi- 
erarchy, to raise a bulwark against heresy, disbelief, 
disorder, criticism, backsliding, was the aim of these 
two men. It was accomplished, for better or worse. 

The corner-stone of Scripture was laid. No 
pains were spared to surround the collection of 
sacred writings with all the grandeur that imagina- 
tion, fancy, tradition could gather upon it. Strange 
stories were told of the interference of the holy 
spirit in bringing the writings together and authen- 
ticating them ; stories long ago pronounced fables. 
The fact seems to be that some writings were ad- 
mitted because they were supposed to have been 
written by holy men ; others because their contents 
were sacred; others because they countenanced the 
policy of Ezra and Nehemiah. At all events, before 
the time of Christ's coming, the old testament col- 



THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 35 

lection was substantially finished and closed. Not 
altogether closed, because other books might have 
been admitted ; other books were, in fact, admitted ; 
but as far as it went, the collection had the reputa- 
tion of being given and guaranteed by the inspira- 
tion of the Lord. It was called the Law. So 
much for the old testament. The inspiration of the 
old testament scripture was deliberately planned, ar- 
ranged, determined upon, instituted for the protec- 
tion of the Hebrew state. 

How was it in regard to the new testament? 
The Christians were Jews by race and tradition. 
They observed the Jewish customs and ceremonies ; 
they practiced the Jewish rites ; they recited the 
Jewish litanies. For a century and a half after the 
death of Jesus the only Bible in use among Christ- 
ians was the old testament, and no attempt was 
made to form any other. Gradually the writings of 
Paul, along with other popular pieces of various 
stamp, were brought in. Local collections were 
formed. They grew with additions. To keep 
heresy at bay, to protect the germinating orthodox 
tradition, scholars worked ; consultations were held ; 
but no attempt was made to authenticate a collec- 
tion of writings which would stand as Christian 
scriptures, occupying the same relations towards 
Christian that the Hebrew writings did towards the 
Jewish faith, until the reign of the Emperor Con- 
stantine, in the year 332. 



36 THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 

Now observe; Constantine undertook exactly the 
work that Ezra and Nehemiah took in hand, as 
agents for the Persian monarch. He was building 
up an empire. He was restoring a state. He was 
organizing a policy. Constantine was a shrewd, 
wily, long-sighted, unscrupulous man. He knew 
well that a state without a church, a church without 
a priesthood, a priesthood without a collection of 
scriptures, were things unheard of. He, therefore, 
in the interest of his policy, a purely worldly policy, 
issued orders for the formation of a collection of 
scriptures. A collection was made. The effort 
came to no result. The task was formidable, and 
there was no tribunal of judgment. Generations 
passed away, and nothing more was done. The 
middle ages elapsed and made no contribution of 
importance to the work. 

It was in the fifth century that the council of 
Carthage undertook, in the interest of a consolida- 
ting orthodoxy, to bring the divided portions of the 
church together. As part of the scheme, the coun- 
cil made another attempt to establish the canon of 
scriptures, and failed. Not' until the council of 
Trent — the famous council of Trent — the most 
famous council in the whole order of church his- 
tory, which was held in the year 1545, was the 
doctrine of the inspiration of the Bible pronounced 
upon. 



THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 3/ 

And why was the council of Trent held ? To 
establish the unity of the church ! to raise a bulwark 
against Protestantism. The church was disinte- 
grated. The Catholic dogmas were falling to pieces. 
The Protestant heresy was spreading. The spirit 
of rebellion was creeping in at all points, and it was 
absolutely necessary that a great effort should be 
made to stem the torrent of unbelief. And the 
first declaration of the sanctity and inspiration of 
the Bible was made by this council, as late as the 
middle of the sixteenth century. And again, let it 
be repeated, for the purpose, the deliberately 
avowed purpose, of shoring up the tottering walls 
of Catholic Christendom. No argument was given ; 
no critical reasons were assigned. The doctors who 
presided at the council of Trent, did not undertake 
to say on what outward or inward evidence the 
scriptures should be considered inspired. It was 
necessary for the salvation of the church that they 
should be so declared, and they were so declared. 
Popular consent was the umpire. 

Then we come to Protestantism. It was a prime 
necessity for the Protestant churches that they 
should have a basis, a foundation, a creed, an au- 
thority to appeal to. They had discarded the 
Church. They had disavowed the Councils. They 
flouted the authority of the Pope. The Council of 
Trent was nothing to them. They must have a 



38 ' THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 

substitute in place of the hierarchy. They set up 
the Bible ; in order to give a solid impregnable ada- 
mantine basis of unity for the Protestant confes- 
sion, they planted themselves upon the Bible, as- 
serting its inspiration with more emphasis and de- 
termination than ever. 

Martin Luther was absorbingly interested in his 
doctrine of justification by faith. His idea was 
that the essential truths of salvation were to be 
comprehended at once and immediately by the 
human soul, and he therefore pronounced upon the 
scriptures, judging them by the " analogy of faith." 
The human soul above the scripture ! This would 
not do. The reformed Protestants led by John 
Calvin made a more systematic study, and gave a 
more scientific interpretation of the Bible, always 
in the interest of the faith, always with an eye to 
unity of the Church ; not rationally defending its 
inspiration, not justifying the dogma by evidence, 
but laying such basis as was necessary to build a 
Church upon. Calvin was reasonable. His succes- 
sors were not. The most extravagant ideas of the 
inspiration of the bible were set on foot by the fol- 
lowers of those very men, who were supposed to 
have advocated the principle with free inquiry. They 
did nothing of the kind. It is a mistake to identify 
the Protestant principle with free inquiry. The au- 
thority of the bible over the mind was the Protest- 



THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 39 

ant idea. The Protestants laid down the doctrine 
of the inspiration of the bible in terms stronger, 
more absolute, more narrow and literal than had 
ever been stated before, and they maintained the 
doctrine with a stubbornness of will that had never 
before been illustrated. Not merely the sentiments 
and thoughts of the bible, but its very letters, nay 
its vowel points even were considered inspired ; so 
firmly set were the opinions of the early Protestants 
upon this most literal form of inspiration, that no 
crack or crevice was left open for doubt, misgiving, 
or inquiry. The bible was closed against investiga- 
tion. Science, history, philosophy, must all stand 
aloof. The bible was regarded as a divine produc- 
tion, not as a book, emanating, in the course of 
literature, from the human mind. There was not 
a human element in it. The human reason must 
submit to its test. 

Little by little, very little by very little, the 
critical spirit succeeded in breaking into the sacred 
enclosure. Scholars came to know something, 
students of literature asked questions, persisted in 
asking questions, until now, we have extorted the 
admission from intelligent Christian men, that the 
inspiration of the bible is limited to the inspiration 
of its spiritual ideas. 

By this mere outline sketch which lack of room 
forbids extending, one may see clearly enough how 



40 THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 

it came to pass that the inspiration of the bible was 
accepted as a belief ; one may see clearly how it fol- 
lows that the doctrine is to be accepted, not on in- 
telligent or spiritual grounds, but simply on the 
grounds of ecclesiastical tradition and authority. 

Now let us look at the consequences that accom- 
pany the doctrine. These consequences are to my 
mind most disastrous. The doctrine of the inspira- 
tion of the scriptures has in my judgment stood and 
does still stand in the way of the progress of the 
human mind, in the regulation of its most vital con- 
cerns. Let us suppose, if we can, that some person 
who has never heard of the doctrine of the inspira- 
tion of the bible were to take it up and read it like 
any other book ; a youth with unprejudiced mind, 
with untrammeled intellect. There is a fascination 
about the old book. The stories of wonder and 
miracle, the beautiful legends, the lively narra- 
tives, the exquisite touches of nature, the glorious 
songs, the strange vicissitudes of the Hebrew 
people, the bits of biography, the sketches of char- 
acter, the marvellous phenomena in heaven and in 
earth, the visitation of angels, the chronicles of 
judgment, all these engage the mind. The en- 
chanted reader goes from passage to passage. All 
at once he is reminded that he must not read this 
book like any other, that he must put his mind 
aside, that his critical taste has nothing to do with the 



THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 41 

composition ; that it is not a human book ; that the 
poetry is not poetry, that the songs are not songs, 
that the history is not history, that the thoughts 
never came from the human mind, but from the 
divine mind ; that never out of a passionate heart 
broke the expressions of feeling ; that the lovely 
sentiments, the sweet strains of poetry are dogmas 
in disguise ; opinions sugared over with poetic asso- 
ciation ! What confusion ; what embarrassment ; 
what dismay must fall upon such a mind ! All its 
criteria for ascertaining truth are thrown to the 
winds. The judgment, the power of discrimina- 
tion, the desire to understand all count for nothing. 
One may not ask a question ; may not criticise ; 
may not contrast or compare ; may not find fault ; 
may not detect discrepancies. The book is all one, 
must be reconciled as one ; the old testament living 
in the new, the new testament living in the old ; 
Moses must be the companion of Jesus ; Jesus must 
be visible in the lamb slain by bloody priests on the 
old Hebrew altars. The frenzied prophet battling 
with the ills and consoling the anguish of his time, 
must be supposed to have an eye towards the 
occurrences of some distant future ; and the de- 
scription of an individual wholly engaged in the 
struggles of his own age, must be supposed to for- 
cast in some mysterious way, the fortunes and fate 
of the unborn Christ. Prophecy, psalm, chronicle, 



42 THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 

legend, dogma, proverb, are all mixed up together ; 
all are made to bear one stamp of mind, heart and 
conviction. What we call intelligence is no more 
possible. The human mind is blotted oat ; reason 
stands aghast. There is no such thing as reason ; 
every rational principle is violated. Consider the tor- 
ture, supposing the reader to be sincere, thoughtful, 
earnest, that such a mind must undergo in attempt- 
ing to unread, to understand the contents of the 
book. Such benumbing paralyzing effect, the doc- 
trine of the inspiration of the scriptures exerts upon 
thousands of minds, reversing all the standards of 
judgment ; so much so, that it is reckoned a kind of 
sacrilege to call the poetry of the old testament 
beautiful ; to ascribe human emotion to the proph- 
ets' speech, to explain symbolical language figura- 
tively, to throw the least surmise or shadow of sus- 
picion upon passages that record the most surprising 
and naturally incredible transactions ; so much so, 
that earnest men with enlightened minds have laid 
their learning and enlightenment altogether aside, 
have become little children, simpler than children, 
as they have read this book, which requires more 
knowledge to understand, more insight, more wis- 
dom, than any book in the English tongue. 

I object again to the doctrine of the inspiration 
of the scriptures that it lays a false basis for natural 
truth. Where shall the geologist learn anything 



THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 43 

about the construction of the earth? From texts 
in Genesis ? a book written, nobody knows by 
whom ? a book full of legends and myths ? He 
must go to the earth itself, turn over its stony leaves 
one by one, and painfully learn to read the record 
which the finger of the Creator has written there. 
How shall the astronomer know anything about the 
stars ? By going to ancient texts which were 
written before the structure of modern science was 
commenced ? He goes to the stars themselves, 
falls back upon his mathematics, consults his calcu- 
lus, uses his latest invented instruments, and builds 
up his knowledge on scientific grounds. How shall 
we learn what is right and what is wrong? By 
studying society ; by observing how things work ; by 
comprehending the conditions of happiness, the 
circumstances that favor progress ; by putting facts 
together ; by referring to the freshest records of 
conscience and comparing the most accurate data of 
experience. Would you go back to a book written 
two thousand or three thousand years ago to know 
how you should treat your neighbor, when your 
neighbor is by your side and you can look him in 
the eye, understanding what he thinks and what he 
needs, what is your duty and what is his respon- 
sibility? How shall we know about providence? 
By studying the world which is the field of pro- 
vidence, getting on the track of law, ascertaining 



44 THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 

the conditions of happy life, measuring the work- 
ings of moral cause and effect, noting how one 
state leads inevitably to another. Rest there. 
Do not pore over texts which you cannot under- 
stand. Live to-day wisely is the maxim, the decree 
of faith as well as of science. Reason, not recol- 
lection, is the organ of truth. 

I maintain, therefore, that scripture in giving a 
basis for ethical ideas independent of experience, 
simply undermines the foundation of knowledge, 
pulls down the structure of rational faith, makes it 
in fact, impossible to build an enduring structure. 
We see the disastrous effect of this, when we come 
to questions of conscience. It is not too much to 
say that no single enormity has gone unjustified by 
scripture. Slavery, war, polygamy, the institu- 
tions that human society has been agonizing to 
put away, spending tears of blood to abolish, have 
been bolstered up by divine authority, barricaded 
against assault by scripture texts. Bitterly can 
some of us look back to the time when anti-slavery 
men had to fight against scripture as being their worst 
opponent. Well do I recollect how a living and 
eminent divine, who has within a few weeks been 
protesting against a close identification of scripture 
in its obvious teachings with exploded dogmas in 
science, — well can I recollect the time when that 
very man cited scripture texts to give warrant to 



THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 45 

the institution of slavery. The times have changed, 
and the exigencies of faith have changed with 
them. 

The Mormon appeals to the bible for his out- 
worn institution of polygamy. The advocate of 
the gallows appeals to the bible for his institution 
of the gibbet. Capital punishment maybe right or 
wrong ; I do not say that it is expedient or inexpe- 
dient : I do not undertake to say whether it be 
brutalizing or civilizing in its effect. The question 
is open ; but to cite an ancient text from Genesis in 
its favor is certainly no argument ; rather it is an 
offense against reason and conscience. Let the 
question be decided on rational grounds as a ques- 
tion in social economy. To decide it upon scripture 
grounds is to the last degree irrational. 

Thus the great company of reformers, whatever 
they aim at, are brought up against the adamantine 
wall of scripture, are bidden to meet an invisible 
foe, to overthrow a spectre or else yield their 
whole case. The enormity of this was early per- 
ceived by honest men. As far back as the third 
century, one of the most eminent fathers of the 
church, an eloquent preacher, a learned scholar, 
declared that to adhere to the literal text of the 
bible was to incur the danger of unreasonableness. 

Is it not so ? To ascertain how men should deal 
with each other in the actual circumstances of life, 



4.6 THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 

— is not that the most important thing to discover ? 
To know how to be true and just, to be charitable 
and kind; to decide what existing relations imply 
and impose, — is not that the one thing needful for 
us? Are not our scientific men, our philosophers, 
our social reformers straining their minds to the 
utmost to reconstruct society upon rational princi- 
ples ? — to find out how and when people should 
marry, how families should be reared, how children 
should be instructed, how schools should be organ- 
ized, how states should be built up, how public af- 
fairs should be conducted ? To get at the secret of 
social existence is more than the wisest and best of 
men have succeeded in doing. But their efforts 
would have been more richly rewarded had they 
not been confronted by the letter of scripture, 
which assured them that all this was settled by 
divine decree thousands of years ago ; that they are 
wasting time, thought and energy. Accordingly, 
all but the resolute give up the inquiry, go back 
to the bible and are quiescent. Some of the best 
minds and noblest hearts in Christendom are by 
this superstition taken from the number of diligent 
workers and consigned to inaction. 

And yet it seems to me of first moment that we 
should believe in inspiration. But inspiration of 
what ? What is the test of inspiration ? That is 
inspired which communicates inspiration. That is in- 



THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 47 

spired which inspires. Any scripture, sacred or sec- 
ular, poetry or prose, writing, history, biography, 
fiction, work of imagination, of knowledge, of phil- 
osophy, — any scripture that inspires men to nobler, 
sweeter, purer, better lives, that warms the heart, 
widens the intelligence, enlightens the conscience, 
fortifies the will, quickens and expands the reason 
is inspired : call it bible if you will ; call it what 
you will ; let it be written by Plato, by Shakspeare, 
Newton, Bacon, Descartes, Schoperhauer, Hart- 
mann ; let it be written by some political economist 
of the latest school, by John Stuart Mill ; let it be 
written by a scientist, Tyndal, Darwin or Huxley, 
by George Eliot, Dickens, Thackeray, Tennyson, 
Browning, Longfellow, — by man or woman of 
genius, dead or alive, if it communicates a spark of 
inspiration, if it nerves man or woman, boy or girl 
to more humane life and duty, it is inspired scrip- 
ture. By this test the old bible must abide or it 
will go down. 

What, finally, is the source of inspiration ? — what 
but the human reason, the highest attainment in 
literature, art, poetry, philosophy, the sum of ac- 
quired intelligence finding expression in articulate 
form of speech, enlightening the open mind, sub- 
duing manners, lifting people out of barbarism and 
beastliness into some distinct consciousness of their 
humanity. This human reason out of which all 



48 THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 

literature has proceeded, which has written all the 
books dictated since time began, form, guarantee 
and consecrate all the scripture's holy texts. 

This supreme reason, the reason of man, only the 
wisest have sounded its depths. The holiest have 
not all of it. The sages grope in its recesses, yet it 
is accessible to the humblest. 

' ' The white wings of the holy ghost 
Stoop unseen o'er the heads of all." 

It is the source of inspiration now and will 
be forever. Its light increases ; the beam of its day 
comes duly and sends a thrill into the stony forms 
standing alone in the wilderness of time. By the 
light of this, men shall no longer walk in darkness, 
but shall have the light of life. Even the weak 
mount up with wings like the eagles ; they shall 
walk and not be weary, they shall run and not faint. 



MORALS AND RELIGION 



A paragraph has lately been going the rounds of 
the papers taken from the writings of one of the 
most eminent literary men of England to the effect 
that a process of decay is going on in society in re- 
gard to the religious beliefs, traditions and institu- 
tions of Christendom, and that the process of decay 
is likely to be followed by results disastrous to 
human society. The man who expresses these 
opinions is understood to be, himself, a free thinker, 
a man of accomplishment and firmness of mind, and 
much boldness of thought ; he cannot, therefore, be 
charged with the timidity which usually prompts 
such declarations. He is a philosopher, a student 
of history, a critic of human opinions ; and, hence t 
it may be presumed that he is prepared for 
any of the ordinary changes that ensue in the 
course of human affairs and speculation. He is not 
frightened by bugbears ; he is not deceived by 
illusions. He sees what so many see, that there is, 



50 MORALS AND RELIGION. 

throughout modern society, an increasing disbelief 
in opinions heretofore unquestioned ; an increasing 
disregard of institutions, a growing neglect of re- 
ligious observances; and he foresees some of the 
inevitable results of changes so vast and revolution- 
ary, running as they do through society, touching 
all classes of men, not a peculiarity of the cultivated 
few, but fast becoming the familiar property of the 
people, and among the intellectual orders a controll- 
ing force. 

Precisely what results so disastrous Mr. Froude 
apprehends he does not specify; but throughout 
our communities we hear every day expressions of 
fear lest a decline of religious beliefs should be fol- 
lowed closely by a decline in the moral forces of 
veracity and of valor, of energy and of purity. As 
men lose their faith in an individual presence super- 
intending daily life, whose providence administers all 
the affairs of men, whose eye is upon every indi- 
vidual's lot, it is apprehended that the sense of 
responsibility will decline; that there will be no 
longer an ever-present and all-sustaining sentiment 
of duty ; that the very idea of a moral law will per- 
ish ; that men flying off from their central attrac- 
tion to goodness will lose themselves in all manner 
of deceitful vagaries. It is apprehended, commonly 
I think, that a disbelief in the dogma of hell will be 
followed by a disintegration in the moral sense of 



MORALS AND RELIGION. 51 

the community. Damp down the fires of perdition, 
men say, and the zeal of conscience will cool. 
Having nothing to fear in the future, there will be 
no dread, no perception even of the transient evils 
of the present; a sensual philosophy will prevail, 
and men will indulge themselves at bidding of de- 
sire in the loose enjoyments of a low, mechanical or 
animal existence. It seems to be a common belief, 
that if the faith in a hereafter, in a personal, indi- 
vidual, responsible immortality, were weakened, 
there would all at once, be a relapse into the bes- 
tial condition, we have so slowly outgrown. 

I cannot share such a fear and for reasons 1 am 
about to give. It seems to me to be too much for- 
gotten that conduct depends upon its own laws; 
that morality follows its own rules of development, 
and comes or goes, is variable or permanent, accord- 
ing to the general compliance or non-compliance 
with the conditions of life that are appointed for 
each generation. Vast social movements going 
forward day after day, without choice or will or de- 
termination of special men, seem to be independ- 
ent of the speculative changes that disintegrate 
systems of thought. 

Looked at historically, it is not strictly true that 
morals and religion have invariably accompanied 
each other. On the contrary, there are facts which 
look the other way. Morality and religion are two 



52 MORALS AND RELIGION. 

distinct and often incompatible spheres. The re- 
ligions of Asia, of Africa, of the continents of North 
and South America have not acknowledged a close 
partnership with morality. Millions of Asiatics, 
Buddhists, Brahmins, Hindoos have never felt that 
morality was dependent or attendant on religion. 
The native tribes of Africa have never entertained 
such an idea. The original inhabitants of North 
America have never dreamed of such a thing. The 
notion would seem to be peculiar to a section of 
the human race. It comes to us directly from the 
Jews, the most conspicuous branch of what we call 
the Semitic races. It was fully recognized and 
adopted by the Hebrews, who were eminently a 
practical people, active, purposeful, executive, 
living in and for this world, setting high value on 
the good things of this life, a people who for ages 
of their national existence had no well-defined con- 
ception of a hereafter. All their ideas of Provi- 
dence, of divine rule, referred to the conduct of life 
as it lay before them. The prayer of the pious 
Hebrew was that he might have a long life in this 
world. Fortune, happiness, abundance of children, 
wealth, position were signs of divine favor, in his 
eyes. Church and state in his view were one. Je- 
hovah was the sovereign ruler. He made and exe- 
cuted laws. He prescribed customs for the state, 
the family, the individual. He presided over 



MORALS AND RELIGION. 53 

the actual workings of mortal affairs. Jehovah was 
an administrator who demanded practical obedi- 
ence. This intimate connection between things 
divine and things human, may without exaggera- 
tion be called a peculiarity of the people who gave 
origin to Christianity. They imparted their genius 
to the new faith. This particular idea of a close 
relation between morals and religion comes directly 
from them, and any divergence from it is due to in- 
fluences that came in from another quarter, and 
changed the current of the primitive tradition. 
The infusion of the Asiatic and Greek spirit weak- 
ened the alliance. The Catholic church for reasons 
which history discloses, held fast to this notion that 
men must live up to their faith, and make their 
lives in some degree consistent with their religious 
beliefs. Protestantism did not discard the tradi- 
tion, but transmitted it ; thus it has come to pass 
that the faith has been passed along beyond the 
limits of the Semitic or Hebrew race, and has be- 
come the faith of modern Europe. In Western 
Europe it is now a conceded point that religion 
and morality must go hand in hand together. But 
in Eastern Europe it is not yet fully conceded, and 
outside of Europe it is not conceded at all. And 
the prejudice disappears from the mind of the mod- 
ern world according to the rapidity with which ra- 
tional or scientific morality supersedes ecclesiastical 
or traditional. 



54 MORALS AND RELIGION. 

In proportion as ethics become established on 
natural foundations, as morals are built up upon a 
firm human basis and stand upon their own princi- 
ples, they become independent of religion. The two 
spheres again become distinct from one another. 
Morality may even impose conditions upon religion 
constraining it to be reasonable. The deity must 
become just, the providence must be merciful, the 
hereafter must be rearranged ; the dogma of hell is 
abolished as unworthy of just deities. In the cen- 
ters of civilization, where civilization is civilized, 
where men that is, are civil, morality modifies and 
transforms faith, and will do so more and more. 

Looking at the subject philosophically, we see 
that the divorce between religion and morals 
is effected by the necessity of the case. It 
is decreed. The object of religion — taking the 
interpretation of it by Christianity, Buddhism, 
Bramanism, or any of the old world faiths, is to 
reconcile men with God, not with each other. Mor- 
ality aims to produce a perfect society ; religion 
aims at building up the family in heaven. Morality 
aims- at making men happy, sympathetic, just, 
kind ; religion aims at making men safe in the 
hereafter. Morality would make men aware of 
their brotherhood, sensible of their social relations, 
alive to the demands of mutual obligation, strict 
and reasonable in the practice of duty and good 



MORALS AND RELIGION. 55 

will one towards another ; religion proposes to 
restore a broken bond between earth and heaven, 
to placate a God, get the good will of a super- 
natural being, propitiate the wrath of invisible 
powers, make it possible when this world is done, 
for the true believers, to occupy places of privilege 
in the kingdom of heaven. Morality contemplates 
the establishment of such reasonable, wholesome, 
hearty, friendly relations among men of all condi- 
tions and ages, as will make life desirable and insure 
steady improvement. Religion does not necessarily 
recognize this end. Its duty is accomplished when 
God is pleased. Its offering is the offering that 
pleases God. Its sacrifice is the sacrifice that pro- 
pitiates God. Morality makes the citizen, religion 
the saint. Religion and morality therefore thus 
defined, have in view two entirely different objects. 
One may exist and flourish without the other, as 
each in fact does. We may suppose ecclesiastical ob- 
servances abolished, yet morality would go on. 
We may suppose men to be immoral, cold, unsym- 
pathetic, unjust, cruel, vindictive, yet religion might 
thrive. The two are at war oftener than at peace. 
Millions of the human race, the ignorant, the de- 
graded, the debased in manners, low in their whole 
conception of life, are abjectly devout, bend the 
knee before any power that makes the least claim 
on their adoration, bring their costliest offerings 



56 MORALS AND RELIGION. 

and lay them upon an idolatrous altar, supplicate the 
priest for absolution in the belief that gifts will 
bribe the Supreme Power. As is the degradation, 
so is the devoutness. The postures are arranged 
by the terrors, and the terrors are great in pro- 
portion to the mental darkness. The minister of 
religion tells men what they must do, and pro- 
nounces the verdict on conduct. 

Thus, while historically we see that morals and 
religion seldom have gone hand in hand together, 
looked at philosophically, we see how they never 
can be in close companionship. Taking the defini- 
tion of religion that is entertained in the popular 
churches of New York this very day, it is simply 
impossible that rational morals and such a religion 
should go hand in hand together. They strain in 
different, at moments in opposite directions. 

And now we are prepared to take the next step, 
and to say that on a rational view, morals come 
first, not merely in importance, but in logical order. 
The moral state of man, the cast of his sentiments 
and convictions determines his worship. We begin 
with morality, such as it is, for we feel before we 
think; we adore before we understand. Our gods 
reflect ourselves. All religions, when they are 
natural and simple — I mean before they are insti- 
tuted, — are but a reflection of the moral state of 
the men who entertain them. They are gigantic 



MORALS AND RELIGION. 57 

pictures on the clouds drawn by human hopes and 
fears. Views of God, the hereafter, the need and 
method of propitiation depend on the imagination, 
not on knowledge or judgment. Degraded people 
have degraded deities. People whose lives are low 
and mean have a hereafter that is low and mean. 
One can have no conception of a future that is not 
grounded on and colored by the moods and persua- 
sions that exist in the present. As men are, such 
will be their divinities. They will worship nothing 
higher than they can conceive, and they will con- 
ceive nothing higher than what their conscience and 
heart dictate. It is simply impossible that a vacant 
mind, or an abject will, should worship a pure di- 
vinity. Call God what you choose, call him " Je- 
hovah, Jove or Lord," Father in Heaven, Mother 
of souls, he will be to you the idol which your 
thoughts make him. You will transform him into 
the image of yourself. 

Every form of religion, therefore, traced back to 
its source, is perceived to be a reflection, a pro- 
jection out of themselves, a delineation upon the 
walls of the world, of the moods, temperaments, 
dispositions, states of feeling which nations of men 
have entertained. Primitive Christianity was a re- 
flection of the normal condition of the Jews at the 
time when the religion started on its course. We 
are in the habit of considering Christianity as a dis- 



58 MORALS AND RELIGION. 

tinct legacy to mankind, a new revelation, a sudden 
outbreak of glory, a fresh influx of life to the world. 
But as we search history, we find that even here 
every shade of color, every touch of light, every 
moral trait that the early religion exhibited was a 
literal reproduction of the state of feeling in which 
the people were living. What was that state of 
feeling ? It reveals itself. Here was a race, with a 
remarkable history, with more remarkable expecta- 
tions, calling itself the chosen race, believing itself 
to be the peculiar people of Jehovah, looking for an 
absolute triumph of its own faith, the supremacy of 
its religious institutions and policy over the habit- 
able world, despising the vast Roman Empire as 
Pagan, counting the nations of the earth as dust in 
the balance, anticipating the day of judgment when 
its law should pronounce sentence on all Gentiles, 
Greek, Roman, barbarian, no matter how numerous, 
educated, proud in strength. When Jehovah should 
say the word and these should vanish like a dream, 
the chosen people would remain. 

This was the expectation. Think of these people, 
poor, persecuted, oppressed, kept under the heel of 
the hated Roman empire, the heart seething with an- 
guish, the conscience agonized with pain as they con- 
template the gulf between the present degradation, 
the bitterness of humiliation and shame, and the 
dream of a splendor that might break any morning. 



MORALS AND RELIGION. 59 

Then look at primitive Christianity, and see how it 
reflects every trait, every shade of expression, every 
phase of emotion. It shows exactly these hopes, 
these fears, these anticipations, these and no others. 
Jesus called himself the Messiah, whom all the peo- 
ple were hungering for ; and those who followed him, 
clung to him, called themselves his disciples, were 
the poor, meek, sorrowing Jews who believed his 
claim, and were persuaded that the divine hour was 
about to strike, that the supreme moment, the judg- 
ment of the world was at the door. That is all 
there was in that first generation. The exaltation 
lasted for a few years, but threw its ray much fur- 
ther. When time proved the national expectation 
to be an enthusiastic dream, when the world went 
on in its inflexible course, and the Roman empire 
instead of vanishing away like a mist, grew in 
might more and more, the expectation chang- 
ed its form. The kingdom of heaven no longer 
looked for on earth was transferred to the 
skies. The believer hoped to rise to it, instead of 
awaiting its descent to him. The disciple expect- 
ed, at the resurrection, to float upwards to the place 
of his blessedness leaving terrestial misery behind. 
That is the chief characteristic difference between 
new testament Christianity and Judaism. 

The Religion in its later historical form followed 
closely the primitive tradition of its founders. The 



60 MORALS AND RELIGION. 

faith represented the morals of the world to which 
it went. How was it with the Roman Catholic 
church? This Church, — for fifteen hundred years, 
the greatest religion on the face of the 
globe, the most compact, the most splendid, the 
most completely organized, — was yet but a reflec- 
tion of the moral condition of the society in which 
it was planted. It was and is the church of Rome, — 
of Rome, the imperial city — the mistress of the 
world, — the city whose majestic peace massive and 
stately settled down upon the civilized globe. Hers 
was a name representative of stable power, of law, 
of organization ; a name for all that was tremendous 
in will, sweeping in rule ; it stood for an im- 
perialism. Rome was the city of the earth, the 
eternal city. Christianity has its seat there ; and 
Christianity, observe, takes on the attributes of 
the city where it was planted and first established. 
It is the church of Rome, a state church, a consecra- 
ted dominion ; simply the old empire with the name 
of Christ given to it. In spirit it was imperial, 
though it appealed for its authority to the meek 
Nazarene. The peculiarity of the Roman church is 
the peculiarity of the Roman empire. Its interest 
in intelligence was small ; its concern for dogma was 
immense. Its creed was loose ; its claim to author- 
ity was absolute. It never cared much for theolog- 
ical niceties. It never encouraged philosophy, as 



MORALS AND RELIGION. 6l 

such, or countenanced subtle disputations. It was 
and is an administration. It was and is a dominion, 
a power, a state. It has its king, its subordinate 
officers, its fixed law and statute. It has its hier- 
archy of titled priests, its altars, its sacramental 
rites and symbols. These are the tests. The pri- 
vate individual may think as he will as long as he 
does not proclaim his thought. For the church of 
Rome cares supremely about order. No sage or 
philosopher, Galileo or Bruno, no saintly Savonarola 
may disturb the appointed order. The church al- 
lows an indefinite liberty of opinion so long as the 
policy is unbroken. Thus, when the catholic church 
undertook to define and settle the canon of 
scripture, it followed the rule of prescription. In- 
stead of proceeding scientifically, by critical means, 
to discover what books of scripture might be genu- 
ine, what were authentic, it called for a popular 
vote. It took the public consent. It was an affair 
of statesmanship. The council of Trent accepted 
and ratified the books that everybody read. That 
was scripture that was received as scripture. The 
church does not care to go behind the actual fact. 
Those were the books that custom, observation, gen- 
eral habit and association confirmed as edifying. 
The Roman church believes in ethics, in morals, in 
systematic arrangement of duties, encouraging 
people to walk steadily in the beaten track, 



62 MORALS AND RELIGION. 

to march uncomplainingly along the highway. 
Take another illustration of the idea that religion 
follows ethics. The end of the ioth century was 
one of those astonishing crises in history from which 
creeds and institutions date their birth. It signal- 
ized the expiration of the thousand years which, 
according to prophecy, were to close the career of 
the world. It was the period when the coming of 
Christ was to be looked for — the day of judgment. 
It was an awful crisis As we get into the history 
of it the horrors multiply, the agony increases ; it 
seems to us as if existence must have been almost 
intolerable to any class of men. Ignorance unbound- 
ed, poverty unmitigated, crime stalking through the 
streets, huge plagues and pestilences sweeping over 
continents carrying people away by the tens of 
thousands; no schools, no knowledge, no intelli- 
gence, the lower classes trodden down pitilessly, the 
upper classes reckless, savage, luxurious, bloodthirsty; 
a spirit of fear haunting men, an abject terror per- 
vading all Christendom. The populations with 
blanched faces fall on their knees, listening for the 
sound of the awful trumpet which is to announce 
the end of the world predicted by the seer of the 
apocalypse. Then was revived, out of this suspense 
and horror, this sense of hopelessness, and helpless- 
ness, that doctrine of expiation which rules protest- 
antism to-day. Born of sorrow the most intense, 



MORALS AND RELIGION. 63 

of fear that was unspeakable, of the extreme bitter- 
ness of poverty, want, degradation ; of the conviction 
that man could do nothing for himself but must 
abandon effort and abjure will, feeling that if help 
ever came it must come from above, and that, to 
obtain it from above nothing that man could do, 
nothing that man could give would avail aught, the 
doctrine buried men in ashes. There could be noth- 
ing but abject humiliation, a sense of worthlessness 
and utter prostration of the whole being before the 
representative of the avenging Christ, an agonized 
cry that in the breaking up of things this poor help- 
less unhappy soul might be snatched from the flame. 
At that time, what more natural than the demand 
for expiation ? A sense of utter worthlessness, deg- 
radation, depravity and ill desert become inborn, 
struck down to the very roots of the human mind. 
No philosopher was clear headed enough, calm 
enough in his judgment, to stem the torrent of su- 
perstition, but was swept along with the rest to the 
bitter sea of humiliation. The world of Christen- 
dom lay panting on the bosom of the Saviour. 

That tremendous experience is not yet outgrown. 
The moral convulsion occurred nearly ten centuries 
ago. Yet, so intense was the emotion, its traces 
still linger in the consciousness of mankind. The 
Evangelicals will not for centuries to come, outgrow 
it ; so deeply rooted was the suffering that nothing 



64 MORALS AND RELIGION. 

less than a complete change in the intellectual and 
spiritual climate will eradicate the germs of the dis- 
ease. 

There is an impression, due simply to want of in- 
formation, that the moral moods of mankind are 
permanent, that while the agitations of thought are 
felt on the surface of society, the great deeps of 
feeling are still. Knowledge corrects the mistake. 
History discloses the fact that waves of feeling 
sweep over the surface of humanity ; that multitudes 
of men go from action to reaction, from one ex- 
treme to the opposite, from the lowest point of fear 
to the highest acme of hope ; one extreme generates 
another. The age of penitence when men clothe 
themselves in sack-cloth and sit in ashes, will be suc- 
ceeded by an age of ecstasy when men stand upon 
their feet, leap, run, dance, trust themselves, believe 
in their future, behave as if their destinies were in 
their own hands. As these moods ebb and flow, 
the creeds of men change, alternate and pass away. 

Take as illustration, puritanism in England. The 
rise of puritanism was due to natural causes. This 
extraordinary religious manifestation had its root in 
morals, in the moods of conscience. England had 
been becoming more and more conventional, showy, 
external from generation to generation. Ever since 
the reign of Elizabeth, the final departure from the 
See of Rome, the defeat of the Armada, the soul of 



MORALS AND RELIGION. 65 

the people had been declining. Ceremonialism and 
extravagance set in. The temporal was gaining su- 
premacy over the spiritual. Worldliness reached 
its height in the time of the Stuarts. Reaction sets 
in — a reaction towards sobriety, austerity, severity 
of manner, strict and stern integrity, simplicity going 
to self renunciation. Calvinism revived. The sense 
of sin was intense. The conviction became over- 
whelming, that all this pomp and show passed for 
nothing, that religion was a serious matter between 
the soul and its redeemer. Then ensued that pro- 
found inward experience, a sense of the dignity of the 
spiritual being, a foreboding of judgment and doom, 
the persuasion that immortal man was a centre of 
interest to all the economies of the universe, which 
the American revivalist uses as his chief weapon, 
which is the soul of all living evangelicalism. For- 
tunately there is a good deal less of that than there 
was a few years ago. The feeling of an intense 
reality taking the place of external show and dis- 
play characterizes Evangelicalism, old and new, 
German, English, American, it matters not. This 
phase of emotion passes away and is followed by 
another mood. Puritanism in modern England can- 
not hold its own long. The fanaticism becomes op- 
pressive and tiresome. The heat cools down ; the 
intensity declines ; and a sober rational state of mind 
succeeds. 



66 MORALS AND RELIGION. 

The next phase was Unitarianism, a " system of pale 
negations," as Emerson calls it, the characteristic of 
which is good-behaviour, respectability, decency, a 
calm propriety. It is the religion of the " best 
people," the religion of the " proper sort," the placid 
and well to do. It does not take hold of passionate 
humanity. It has not a warm, expansive, capacious 
heart. It has not the conscience that goes to the 
spiritual roots of life. It denotes a reaction from 
an exaggerated over-strained spiritual condition, 
and is rather marked by fatigue than energy. This 
is the reason probably why Unitarianism does not 
and cannot spread, because it is a local and inciden- 
tal not a human reaction. 

Rationalism, on the other hand, is a human reac- 
tion, and rationalism has its roots, too, in morality. 
It grounds itself upon principle. For now what do 
we see ? Instead of the overwrought earnestness of 
the evangelical school, there is profound earnest- 
ness of another kind, which expresses itself through 
science, literature, reform, politics, a determination 
to reach a nobler society, to find the paths of real 
life. The prophets of this generation are the chil- 
dren of morality. The men who are ruling this age 
and who shape the religions that are to come, are men 
who entertain scarcely any technical religious beliefs, 
who disregard the supernatural, but who are intense- 
ly interested in the conditions of social life, students 



MORALS AND RELIGION. 6/ 

of nature and of man, bending all their energies 
to reconcile the world with itself, to put away wars, 
and slaveries, to reduce the sphere of violence, to 
diminish corruption, and call into active exercise the 
natural forces of health. Reasonable men they are, 
studious, thoughtful, laborious. But they are tre- 
mendously in earnest, though with little demonstra- 
tion. They have an irresistible force and sweep of 
conscience. These illustrations will suffice, I trust, 
to show how religion reflects morality, to prove that 
morality comes first, that morals dictate faith, shape 
it, color it. 

Now the question arises, is morality progressing 
or retrograding? Are morals higher or lower than 
they were ? Are we gaining or loosing in ethical 
principle? I contend, with all my might, with the 
utmost clearness of persuasion, with the utmost 
earnestness of conviction, that the morals of the 
civilized world are improving year by year ; that we 
are getting nearer the heart of principles, that we 
are understanding the drift of laws, that we are com- 
prehending the conditions and taking advantage of 
the opportunities that work together to make socie- 
ty what it ought to be. We are not called on to 
pronounce an encomium upon the morals of modern 
society. They are certainly bad enough. No one 
has painted them worse than, in my judgment, they 
deserve. But this is not the question. The ques- 



68 MORALS AND RELIGION. 

tion is whether morals are getting better or worse. 
Are they in the way of improvement on past states, 
or, are they, as many would have us believe, declin- 
ing? We shall never have perfect morality while 
there is room for improvement, while the law of 
Progress holds. Long after we shall have passed 
from the scene and been forgotten, nothing like a 
kingdom of heaven on earth will be seen. Let us 
not boast of the excellence of established morals. 
Our age has its peculiar dangers, its characteristic 
vices, its special sins. Every age has. In some re- 
spects we are worse than those that have gone be- 
fore. We have left virtues behind which they pos- 
sessed. Still, I hold in spite of all that can be said, 
in spite of all that can be imagined, that the condi- 
tion of things is vastly and essentially better than it 
has been. 

Neither am I disposed to make too much account 
of the diminution of special evils in our modern 
society. It is true that certain gigantic, overshadow- 
ing wrongs and crimes that have characterized, curs- 
ed and oppressed ages of the world are diminishing 
in modern communities. That, however, is not an 
infallible, unmistakable sign that our morality has 
become so much higher. War, for instance, is very 
much reduced in its proportions. Wars are less fre- 
quent than they were. They are not precipitated 
as hastily as they were. Diplomacy goes before 



MORALS AND RELIGION. 69 

them, accompanies them, follows after them ; they 
are deprecated, deplored. This may not be the re- 
sult of a more humane feeling in regard to the enor- 
mity of war. Men are still violent, but they show 
their feiocity in other ways. Men hate, but do not 
hate after that fashion. Men kill, but not so bru- 
tally. There is less love of bloodshed ; is there less 
malignity? There is no evidence that the new testa- 
ment has had any considerable effect in diminishing 
the war spirit. The peace societies have done little 
or nothing towards promoting pacific relations 
among men. We have discovered that the interests 
of peace are paramount, that if we would establish 
ourselves in comfort and prosperity, if we would 
make steady progress in the arts of civilized life, we 
must have peace. War is costly, is disturbing, is 
disintegrating, and anarchial. It wastes the accu- 
mulations of all classes. The mercantile interest, the 
commercial interest, the working man's interest is all 
against war, and war consequently disappears, not 
because we are so much more christian, humane or 
tender-hearted, but because we are more circum- 
spect and careful. 

Slavery is all but abolished now in modern civili- 
zation. But what abolished slavery in this country ? 
A sense of justice, a conviction of the inviolability 
of human dignity, the sacredness of human rights, a 
warmer heart towards the down-trodden and op- 



70 MORALS AND RELIGION. 

pressed, a glowing, enthusiastic passion for liber- 
ty? That can hardly be said. In spite of all that 
conscience could do, slavery would probably be ex- 
isting now. Slavery was abolished as an incident to 
the civil war. What was the civil war for? The 
union of the States. It was not a war against 
slavery but against secession. This was avowed by 
the highest authority. Slavery was implicated and 
was smitten, but it was smitten hesitatingly and as a 
war measure. The war was fought and fought vic- 
toriously at immense sacrifice in the northern States, 
by men who approved of slavery as well as by men 
who did not, by pro-slavery as well as by anti-slave- 
ry people. Multitudes, all through the war, even 
when they were giving their money and sending 
their sons down to the front, protested against the 
unnecessary disturbance of the institution of slavery. 
Even now there are thousands of unionists who 
would gladly see the system restored, as the natural 
system of labor between the white and black races. 
Slavery was ground to pieces between the upper and 
the lower mill-stones of the strife. 

Similar social influences are at work in our com- 
munities to dry up the sources of intemperance. In- 
temperance is on the decrease decidedly, percepti- 
bly, by the general admission of unprejudiced ob- 
servers. How is this to be explained? Not by a pre- 
valent conviction of the iniquity of this species of 



MORALS AND RELIGION. J I 

intoxication, not by a keener sense of the dignity 
of human nature, not by a well grounded respect 
for individual purity or domestic peace, but by a 
current belief that intemperance is ruinous to tem- 
poral prospects. It is wasteful of money, time, fac- 
ulty. It interferes with business ; it is an enemy to 
success. It is no longer reputable or respectable. 
Its injurious effects on the working powers and on 
social position have been abundantly demonstrated. 
Common prudence warns against it. Every consid- 
eration of good sense protests against it. All the 
interests of practical life are its foes, and* common 
wisdom is more potent than the Grace of God. In- 
temperance is no longer popular or fashionable. 
It is not in good social repute, as once it was. 

Let us then frankly admit what will be claimed, 
that the diminution of certain vast evils which dis- 
appear before the march of civilization is not a sign 
of increasing moral force. There are still one or two 
things that are ; one or two signs which it seems to 
me cannot be disregarded. 

In the first place, the general sense of dissatisfac- 
tion and discontent, the impatient demand for a 
better state of society, the passionate complaint of 
evils once unnoticed, are signs that evils are dimin- 
ishing. When a man begins to find fault with him- 
self, is it not evidence that he is becoming a better 
man ? Those who are perfectly satisfied with them- 



72 MORALS And religion. 

selves do not rank high in the list of character. As 
sensibility of conscience, the first incipient prick of 
obligation, is the sign of returning moral vitality in 
ttie individual, so, public criticisms, exposures, 
scandal, are signs that men are becoming sensitive 
to shame, that they are on the look-out for frailty, 
are not afraid to acknowledge iniquities, to confess 
enormities, and would have them done away with. 
The sharp criticism of public servants, the prying in- 
spection into private affairs, the demand that every 
man shall show his hand, is very uncomfortable, very 
disagreeable, exceedingly impertinent and insolent; 
yet, as Emerson said "We cannot spare the coarsest 
muniment of virtue. We are disgusted with gossip ; 
yet it is of importance to keep the angels in their pro- 
prieties.'* Condemnation evinces conscience. It is 
important that the signs be understood. As one 
fraud after another is exposed, as enormity after en- 
ormity is dragged to the light, men exclaim : Was 
there ever such a wicked age, so dishonest, so care- 
less, so heedless of trusts, so treacherous, as this? 
But, we reply, the iniquity is weighed and measured ; 
we put a mark against it ; we have our eye on it ; 
we are determined to cast it out. In the ages that 
went before us, it existed in more formidable pro- 
portions, but it was covered up. It was not seen, 
or, if it was, it was passed over, unchallenged, unre- 
buked. Now it is seen and denounced. 



MORALS AND RELIGION. 73 

The demand for a better social state, for purer 
laws, more equitable civil service, a higher sentiment 
of honor on the part of officials, fidelity in those 
who accept trusts, is universal. It is heard all over 
the community, east and west, north and south, 
from English, Americans, French, Germans. It is 
one of the characteristics of the modern age. It is 
one of the peculiarities of modern society ; it indi- 
cates a calm determined, rational way of looking at 
the evils of the world. 

I select as another indication, the substitution of 
reason for feeling in the treatment of social ques- 
tions. There have always been times when good 
people felt keenly about wrong, sympathized with 
suffering and sorrow, and expressed their emotions 
in burning and eloquent words. At present there is 
less of this sentimental compassion, but there is a 
more resolute, quiet, and even method pursued to 
find out what is wrong and to remedy it. 

Take the treatment of the insane, the course 
adopted towards criminals, the provision for the 
poor, for the amelioration and eradication of vice. 
Mistakes are made of necessity ; blunders occur con- 
tinually ; still, the most earnest and thoughtful peo- 
ple are at work all the time and on the lines of com- 
mon sense, sober judgment, knowledge of facts, with 
a purpose to establish on broad impregnable foun- 
dations the principles of a better society. Does not 



74 MORALS AND RELIGION. 

this indicate a higher mental condition than the 
world has seen before ? It seems to me to indicate 
nothing else, not so openly on the surface that one 
who runs can read, but beneath the surface; plain to 
observing eyes, proving that men have got hold of 
a principle of universal application, have discovered 
a truly human law of responsibility, have arrived at 
the notion that man owes something to man, that 
one condition hinges on another, that one order of 
society depends on another, that all, in fact, are one 
in brotherhood. 

Certainly, if there be a moral principle pregnant 
with results of the utmost importance to mankind, 
this is. When the heart does not cease to feel, 
while the judgment does begin to work, then we 
know that we are no longer subject to caprices, ups 
and downs, ebbs and flows of passion and sentiment, 
but have laid the basis for a steady onward march 
toward permanent conditions. 

We begin then with morals. Morals are primary. 
Morals command at last religion. We must com- 
mence building where we are. People complain of 
morals as being cold, unsentimental, unsympathetic. 
But warmth, glow, beauty, tenderness, all, in due 
form grow out of this soil. Be honest, try to be 
honest ; make effort to tell the truth ; resolve to be 
just, and you lay the foundation of society. Practice 
virtue more and more ; carry out the refinements, 



MORALS AND RELIGION. 75 

and at last all that is most beautiful and gracious, 
friendship, sympathy, compassion, tender mercy, 
loving kindness, will blossom and bloom all over 
the surface of life. Nay, the graces that have been 
considered peculiarly religious, meekness, patience, 
humility, sweetness, resignation, hopefulness, aspir- 
ation — all these will succeed in their time, born out 
of this same soil. For morals persisted in, under- 
stood, completed, are a guard and protection against 
scepticism. They are the sources of faith. 



RELIGION AND IMMORALITY. 



Last Sunday I took for my theme Morals and Re- 
ligion, their relations to each other, their mutual in- 
fluence, their connection as cause and effect. The 
point I set forth was this, in brief : That morals 
and religion had two distinct spheres ; that religion 
made it its task to prepare men for a hereafter ; 
that the business of morals was to prepare men for 
living here ; that religion aimed to make men saints ; 
that morals aimed to make men citizens ; that the 
purpose of religion was to regenerate the soul, that 
the purpose of morals was to reconstruct society. 
I gave examples to show that, in history, morals 
and religion, instead of being closely associated 
with each other, had always been separate ; that 
morals, in the order of time, and in the order of 
thought, preceded religion ; that religion reflected 
the moral sentiment of man, whatever that might 
happen to be, and changed as the moral sentiment 
of men improved, or the reverse. It was main- 



78 RELIGION AND IMMORALITY. 

tained that, as the standard of morality was inces- 
santly improving, as the principles of morality were 
gradually becoming understood and established, re- 
ligion was taking on new forms and assuming a 
more beautiful expression. 

There is another aspect to this subject which I 
wish to present this morning. The conclusion 
reached last Sunday was that morals create re- 
ligion. The point I wish to press to-day is that 
under certain circumstances, religion creates morals. 
The inconsistency is apparent only. In commu- 
nities such as the most advanced modern commu- 
nities are, highly organized and developed, in Eng- 
land, America, Germany, France, morals have the 
start already, are well organized and developed. 
There is an ethical system, incomplete, but intel- 
ligent. Moral principles are accepted, moral axioms 
are laid down, moral ideas are assumed and lived 
upon, and made the basis of conduct. In London, 
New York, Boston, in all the great cities of the 
modern world, where society is closely compacted, 
and men by business and other interests are welded 
together, morality assumes .the character of a sci- 
ence, stands on its own foundation and dictates 
the law to religion. The priest must keep his place 
in the general order. The preacher is under criti- 
cism like the ordinary teacher. The altar and sac- 
raments are remanded to a position by themselves. 



RELIGION AND IMMORALITY. 79 

There is exceeding jealousy of the intrusion of 
sacramental or sacrificial religion on the domains 
of practical life, business, politics, social arrange- 
ments ; men demand the right to manage those 
things according to principles that naturally regu- 
late them, and not upon any supercelestial, un- 
natural, preternatural principles. In the centres 
of intelligence morality is established and holds 
the sceptre. But, outside of these centres, where 
morality is yet undeveloped, where its basis is 
scarcely laid and its rules are not recognized, re- 
ligion domineers over morality. In the old world, 
in the uncivilized parts of Germany, France, the 
United States, we see how religion presides over 
morality, prescribes rules to it, commands it, shapes 
it, tells people how they must trade ; bids them 
conduct their affairs and manage their governments 
in the interest of the Church, not in the interest 
of the community. 

There was a time when religion had society all to 
itself ; because feelings, hopes, fears, anticipations, 
come first. Long before men think, study, reason, 
compare, adjust their ideas, understand themselves, 
they feel intensely. Their dread of supernatural 
power is fearful ; their hope of blessedness to come 
to them from a source outside of their lives, takes 
up all the feelings that their heart can entertain. 
Thus religion gets established, instituted, organized, 



So RELIGION AND IMMORALITY 

recognized, long before morals came into the field. 
Hence, we see how it is that religion dictates mo- 
rality. Although, in the first instance, it may have 
simply reflected the moral condition such -as it was, 
yet, having possession of the ground, it dictates 
what the moral principles and feelings of men shall 
be, and so prevents them from becoming what they 
naturally would be. 

I say that religion has for its object to save the 
soul from perdition in the hereafter. Now imagine 
religion instituted, and by religion instituted I mean 
accepted, recognized, built into form, organized, ad- 
ministered by orders of priests ; — imagine this thing 
going on for thousands of years as Christianity, for 
instance, has done, so as to become a religion, an 
accepted practical system, with its priest-hood, its 
churches, its altars, i:s sacraments, its creeds, its sa- 
cred books, its holy customs, covering the surface of 
Europe. For ages it has presided over the whole of 
life. Generations have been born into it, have been 
reared by it. It has held control of the great uni- 
versities, the centres of light, in Italy, France, Eng- 
land, Germany. It has presided over the academies 
of higher education. It has had its ministers in 
the bosom of every family. It has controlled the 
nursery, the primary school. It has written the 
school books. Wherever young people met for in- 
struction, religion has been on the spot to say what 



RELIGION AND IMMORALITY. 8 1 

the instruction should be. This is what I mean by 
instituted religion. It is religion made a part of 
existence. Nobody questions it. Nobody disre- 
gards it. So completely a matter of course is it 
that nobody asks a reason for its existence, or 
credentials of its authority. Nobody doubts its 
doctrines, disputes the efficacy of its sacraments, 
neglects its observances. Generation after genera- 
tion is born, matured and buried without raising a 
surmise in regard to its absolute right to rule. Such 
is instituted religion. It is not your creed, or my 
creed, or the creed of any company, clique or set ; 
it is the creed of everybody, man, woman and 
child. 

For a thousand years Roman Catholicism was 
thus the faith of the western world, as the Greek 
church was the faith of the eastern world, husband- 
ing the sacred sentiments of the people. All the 
great philosophers were Romanist. The scientific 
men were believers in the church. Everybody, 
high and low, strong and weak, rich and poor, wise 
and foolish — everybody without exception, without 
hesitation, without compulsion, recognized the bind- 
ing authority of religion over the whole of life. 

Of course, a system of morals followed more com- 
plete, more exact, more rigid than had been known 
before. I say " of course." The object of religion 
has, we must bear in mind, been to make people 



82 RELIGION AND IMMORALITY. 

happy hereafter. How was it to do this ? In order 
to guarantee the happiness hereafter, it was neces- 
sary that people who professed the religion should 
be members of the church, should be constant at 
the sacraments, should avail themselves of the min- 
istrations of the priest : for saving power came from 
above, from outside, from supernatural sources. 
Hence, certain moral precepts must be accepted, 
certain books must be read, certain other books 
must be avoided, a certain routine of conduct must 
be gone over. Religion therefore had its prescribed 
formularies for every act and experience of life. 
The ministers of religion were in every home, 
telling the parent how to rear the child, telling 
the teacher what the child should study, telling 
the thinker what to think, the student what to 
learn, the critic what to blame or praise. 

We see this system working its way in, until it 
occupies every field of human life, — the depart- 
ments of sentiment, emotion, conscience, regulat- 
ing the motions of hope and fear, standing guard 
at all the avenues of the intellectual, sentimental 
and moral world. Here is a system of morals. 

Consider the practical effect of the two great doc- 
trines of all instituted religion, upon the moral dispo- 
sitions of men ; — first, the doctrine of a personal God. 
And by a personal God I do not mean an infinite 
intelligence, will, force, " a stream of tendency," a 



RELIGION AND IMMORALITY. 83 

" Power outside of ourselves working for right- 
eousness." I mean an individual being watching 
over the world, in whole and in part, overlook- 
ing and ordering every individual life, appointing 
each particular lot, adjusting every detail of fortune, 
counting the tears, numbering the disappointments 
of every one, balancing evil against good, harm 
against benefit, joy against sorrow, educating men, 
training them with patient providence and assign- 
ing every incident in a varied experience by his 
discerning will and for his supreme purpose. Think 
of such an idea as this holding possession of the 
intellectual and spiritual world say for a thousand 
years, nobody opposing it, nobody doubting it, no- 
body repelling it, everybody, old and young, giving 
to it an implicit, explicit and familiar faith, growing 
up and working themselves into it ! 

What is, what must be the consequence ? Cer- 
tainly a state of mind, feeling, will altogether pe- 
culiar. Suppose that each one of us firmly and 
absolutely believed, without the least misgiving or 
qualification, that a being such as I have described, 
infinitely wiser, better, more far-seeing, more fore- 
casting than he had the charge of his particular 
destiny — some guardian angel, some eternal spirit, 
accompanying him in every point of his career, 
doing everything that happened to him, undoing 
everything that was in the nature of mishap to him, 



84 RELIGION AND IMMORALITY. 

sending calamity, loss, disaster, bereavement ; if he 
were stretched upon the bed of sickness, stretching 
him there with definite intention ; if he was raised 
up, raising him up for a purpose ; in all respects 
administering every part and particle of private 
experience; think, I say, of the power of such a 
belief as that ! Believing this one would accept 
his fate without a question, without a murmur. Is 
he poor, he must bless his poverty. Is he ignorant, 
simple, he must be glad that he is not of the com- 
pany of the wise. Is he cast down, trodden under 
foot of men, persecuted, oppressed ; this too is his 
privilege. It is a sin to find fault that this being 
takes the pains to chasten, to educate, to discipline, 
to lead him on. Blessed be poverty ! Blessed be 
pain, sickness, suffering, toil ! Blessed be a lonely 
and miserable lot ! Blessed are the poor. Blessed 
are the meek. Blessed are the hungry and thirsty. 
Blessed are they that are persecuted. Blessed are 
they of whom all men speak ill, for whom the Lord 
loveth he chasteneth. Through suffering men are 
made perfect. Submit and acquiesce. Be grateful 
for the cross ; bow to the rod ;, take your lot. No 
matter whether it seems in the eyes of men desir- 
able or not, you know nothing about that. How can 
you, short-sighted, undertake to pronounce upon 
it? Accept it as the appointment of a being per- 
fectly wise, and just, and good. If life is rich, be 



RELIGION AND IMMORALITY. 85 

grateful that it is so. But be careful not to be 
overweening in your vanity or puffed up in your 
self-esteem. Do not think too highly of yourself, 
for if you do it will be all taken away. Such is 
the moral inference from a belief like this. The 
ministers of religion repress murmurs and skep- 
ticism. The church thunders its denunciations 
against those who would change the established 
situation, pervert the order of things. A type of 
moral sentiment is fostered, the characteristic of 
which is the abnegation of self, the complete resig- 
nation of the person in favor of the Supreme Will. 
It is a type that, in its leading features is distinctly 
immoral, for to call that morality which is an abro- 
gation of the moral will, is a misuse of terms. 

Advert now to the other cardinal idea of religion, 
the idea of a conscious hereafter of pain or of bliss. 
I do not speak now of a rational idea of the here- 
after, such as enlightened people may well enter- 
tain, a conception that carries into the future the 
same laws of moral cause and effect that obtain 
here, but of the ecclesiastical notion, which regards 
the hereafter as a supplement to this life. The pop- 
ular religion says : Your life is short. It is, at the 
most, a few years. How foolish then to undertake 
to judge the issues of life by the glimpse which the 
traveller gets as he swiftly passes on ! The bar of 
judgment is not here, in social enactment or private 



86 RELIGION AND IMMORALITY. 

conscience. Think of the future ; prepare for that. 
Live in the fear of hell, the hope of heaven. Present- 
ly it will all be over. Wait. You will not have long 
to toss on your bed of pain ; you will not have long 
to toil in the stone quarry or the coal mine. Your 
lot is poor, despicable and mean. What of it ? In a 
few years at most, the golden gates fly open and all 
is changed. Then for your poverty you shall be 
rich ; then for your patience you shall receive a 
double reward. Be resigned. Wait, trust, and one 
day all shall be made up to you. Dives has his 
good things now. Lazarus will have his good 
things by and by. 

This doctrine of the hereafter is a companion to 
the doctrine of providence, a supplement to theism ; 
it plays into the hands directly of the theory of 
a divine superintendence over the mutations of 
the particular life. Both lay stress on the same 
qualities, patience, submission, acquiescence, do- 
cility. Life's question will be answered for us 
without seeking. Life's problem will be solved 
without our uneasiness. The crooked ways shall 
be made straight without human effort. The rough 
places shall be made plain without toil, and the 
revealed will shall be made manifest even to the 
simplest ; what we know not now, we shall know 
hereafter. Once more, the morality of dependence, 
is a passive ethics, enervating, discouraging, discharg- 



RELIGION AND IMMORALITY. 87 

ing the personal will of its responsibility to material 
and social relations. 

Try to conceive, for my imagination is not equal 
to the task, try to conceive of the effect of giving 
up these two time honored conceptions. Suppose 
a man brought, as multitudes are, to the conclusion 
that there is no such individual God, no such com- 
pensating hereafter. What must of necessity fol- 
low ? Instantly the moral deeps are broken up ; a 
fearful rent is made in the practical moralities on 
which mankind have been building. Here are actu- 
ally people, thousands of people, the poor, the toil- 
worn, the hungry, the wretched, who say that they 
do not believe any more in this personal inspection 
of Providence. There is no evidence, they say, of 
a heavenly Father. Life does not run to that tune. 
There is no assurance that men are perfected by 
suffering. The blessing, so far as they see, does 
not come to the poor, the weak, the forsaken. 
There is no guarantee for hope but the priest's 
word, and the priest's word has fallen into dis- 
credit. 

This, we must admit, is a fearful pass. The work- 
ing order of society, the conduct of private and 
public life which was conditioned upon the idea of 
personal providence is broken up, and no other 
order is substituted for it. Men say, — the wise 
men — we must recast our conception of God. We 



88 RELIGION AND IMMORALITY. 

must charge the word with new meaning. They 
believe in an infinite intelligence, in an omnipotent 
but inarticulate will. They believe in a living 
power that works with energy through the world, 
expressing itself in all the cosmic forces ; the work- 
ing of this power is inside the universe, not outside 
of it. To find out the will and way of God, study 
the natural and social laws. It is not well to try 
and get out of the world to learn what the world 
is made of. It is not wise to turn the back upon life 
in order to understand it. Hence endeavor instead 
of acquiescence; inquiry instead of dogma; instead 
of content, discontent ; instead of apathy, question- 
ing and seeking; instead of submission, rebellion. 
Does one wish to know the will of the Supreme ? 
Let him study the conditions of life ; let him con- 
form to the principles of mental and moral health; 
let him master the rules according to which civil- 
ized society is organized. Is one ambitious to 
reach heaven ? Let him do his duty as well as he 
knows how, and try in all practicable ways to do it 
better to-day than yesterday. This satisfies the 
instructed, the philosophical, the calm of temper, 
the reasonable. 

But how about the uncultivated, the irrational, 
the passionate, who have placed their whole reli- 
ance upon the personal, presiding providence? what 
have these to say on the new situation ? They 



RELIGION AND IMMORALITY. 89 

have never been schooled in reflection. They have 
not the calmness to think, the discipline to inquire ; 
they cannot fall back on these fine philosophical 
principles. They are creatures of feeling, and their 
feelings are intense ; their wishes are wild. They 
have hungry and craving natures. What must they 
think ? Will they not reason somehow thus, with 
themselves ? Very well, if there is no individual 
God, no personal providence, no supernatural and 
superhuman power to look out for us, we must look 
out for ourselves. If we are to be our own gods 
and providences, we may as well assert ourselves 
and provide. We must get'all we can; make our- 
selves as comfortable as circumstances will allow, 
snatch all the good things which are within reach, 
enjoy our day, pluck the flowers while they are 
blooming. If there is no supreme law over us, if 
we must be law to ourselves, the sooner and more 
firmly we enact our desires the better. 

The same immoral consequence must follow the 
disappearance of the current ecclesiastical belief in 
hereafter. There is no more any use in waiting. If 
the eternal justice is not prepared to square accounts 
on the other side of the grave ; if there is no use 
in expecting and hoping ; if we cannot be sure of 
being rich by and by because we are poor now ; if 
we cannot reckon on felicity in the kingdom of 
heaven as recompense for present misery (and it 



90 RELIGION AND IMMORALITY. 

looks now if this were so), then we must bestir 
ourselves to make time go as far as it will. What 
we want we must get now. We want a good many 
things ; we want all there is. We want pleasure, 
money, opportunity, privilege, power, a feeling that 
we have a share in the good things of life, that we 
count for something in the world. We are of the 
advice of Paul. " What advantageth it me, if the 
dead live not ? Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow 
we die." In another mood, the apostle says : " Breth- 
ren the time is short, I would have you therefore to 
be without carefulness." The modern working man 
says : " Brethren the time is short, we must there- 
fore be careful, since there is no to-morrow after to- 
day." All standards are reversed. What are we to 
expect from all this ? What but unrest, violence, 
anarchy, an irreligious communism, an irrational 
socialism ? It requires a clear head, a balanced rea- 
son, a calm and disciplined temper to face the reali- 
ties of such a world as modern discovery reveals. 
Comparatively few are in condition to do it, for 
few are possessed of the reasonableness, or the self 
command. The greater number of mankind live in 
emotions. Instituted religion, be it remembered, 
has never taken the trouble to make men under- 
stand the practical conditions of life. It has not 
unfolded to them the constitution of the world, or 
taught them how to live on rational principles. It 



RELIGION AND IMMORALITY. 91 

has not instructed them in the economies by which 
they are enabled to make the best of the world as a 
world, but has rather taught them how they are to 
get happily out of it. Religion, that is to say, has 
not encouraged morality, but rather discouraged it, 
partly by keeping in view an object which morality 
cannot accomplish, and yet more, by exaggerating 
the part which feeling is called to perform, subordi- 
nating, in fact, judgment to emotion. Hence, mul- 
titudes of people, the people who need direction 
most, hopeless, helpless people, find themselves 
plunged into an unbelief the only logical issue of 
which is immorality. 

Moreover, instituted religion by playing thus in- 
cessantly upon hopes and fears, heightening them 
in the most extravagant manner — has been steadily 
undermining the foundations of morality. Not 
merely by appealing openly and eagerly to selfish- 
ness, but by stimulating the appetite for sensitive 
bliss. It excites inordinate expectations. Morality 
goes with judgment, sobriety, common sense, know- 
ledge. Feeling is always dangerous to morality, 
and when feeling is fanned to flame, when every 
expression of it is made intense to fanaticism, ex- 
cessive, and overwrought, it may be fatal to mo- 
rality. But has not religion, for nearly two thousand 
years, in the best part of the world been doing this 
very thing, plying conscience with knotted whips of 



92 RELIGION AND IMMORALITY. 

terror, and holding out to hope the pleasant antici- 
pation of joy to eome ? Hell and heaven are threats 
and bribes, the use whereof is incompatible with 
nobleness. The instituted, sanctified employment 
of them, for centuries of time, could hardly result 
in anything else than the weakening of the very 
basis of the moral will. 

We are not surprised then at the cry that comes 
from the depths of a passionate discontent, from 
toilers and sufferers, working men and working 
women, who suddenly open their eyes to the ap- 
palling truth that they must get out of life what 
they can. 

To get the most out of life ! That is an easy thing 
to say; it is the most difficult of all things to do. 
It is not an easy thing to say intelligently. To get 
out of life all there is in it, — none ever lived who suc- 
ceeded in doing that ; for none ever comprehended 
the wealth of the world, or fathomed the depth of 
its possibilities. The time has not come for any 
man to be wise, discerning, deep hearted, earnest 
and noble enough to get out of life all that life 
contains. 

I stood in a populous graveyard. It was a city, 
a veritable city of the dead. There they were, the 
old and the young ; some worn out with trouble, 
toil and care, some overcome before the wear and 
tear of existence began, little babes who had not 



RELIGION AND IMMORALITY. 93 

fairly begun to live, boys and girls, young men and 
women on the threshold of their career; joyless, 
heart-broken dames and sires they all were alike 
silent and still. Was there one of them all who 
had used his life ? Not one. This one lacked in- 
telligence. That one lacked sympathy. This one 
lacked will. That one lacked purpose and ambi- 
tion. This one had too much impulse, overshot 
the mark, and dashed himself to pieces against 
destiny. Not one of the slumbering thousands 
understood fully what he was made for, understood 
himself and his position, arranged his circumstances 
wisely, and lived, all things considered, a complete 
life. It was but a fragmentary existence that the 
best endowed had spent. 

The world is a large place, and life is a large 
arrangement. Human nature is an ocean, not a 
pond. Human society is not so perfectly simple 
as many fancy. It is exceedingly complicated. 
The relations of men are interwoven with such ex- 
treme delicacy and cunning, that, to satisfy them 
all, overtasks the competency of the most sufficient. 

Make the most of life ! Why the wisest men 
who have lived, the deepest thinkers, the most earn- 
est of purpose have been trying to discover for 
thousands of years how to make the most of life, 
on what principle one might make the most of 
life, what one was to do, what one was to avoid 



94 RELIGION AND IMMORALITY. 

who wished to make the most of life. The books 
of wisdom, sacred and profane, abound in directions. 
Philosophers, sages, economists, saints have given 
their prescriptions. The Bible teems with precepts. 
The political economists, the disciples of social sci- 
ence too, are devoting all their energies to the dis- 
covery of *the best way to get the utmost out of 
life. Thus the conditions are laid down. 

I. Life should be made as long as possible. The 
old Bible promises length of days to the wise, that 
is to the just, the good, the religious. It makes no 
such promise to the idle, the slipshod, the foolish, 
the dissolute. Length of life is reckoned a boon. 
Modern science takes up the word. The test, one 
of the primary tests of a satisfactory civilization, is 
longevity. The community that can bring the 
greatest number of children to healthy maturity, 
can carry the greatest number of adults to old age, 
can secure the greatest amount of vigor, health, 
enjoyment to all classes, so far justifies itself. 
Length of days is still one of the criteria of a good 
life, for it implies temperance, frugality, continence, 
regard for the conditions of prosperity. Is one de- 
sirous of obtaining this blessing ? Then must he 
practice moderation in pleasure, cultivate the vir- 
tues of prudence and obedience, cherish simplicity, 
abstain from eradicating vices, avoid unseemly vio- 
lence, repress anarchical and tempestuous disposi 



RELIGION AND IMMORALITY 95 

tions. He must study peace and good will, and 
thus substitute economy of force for waste, encour- 
aging the powers that build up. Reason reinforces, 
passion squanders, vice destroys. To escape wear 
and tear is wisdom ; but to escape wear and tear 
lays a duty on conscience and soul, which the 
foolish cannot understand. The violent heats of 
partisanship are perilous to steady growth. The 
misguided and unregulated stand in danger of the 
State prison, and that shortens life. They may 
be shot down, and that shortens life a good deal. 
Longevity implies material ease and comfort, ad- 
mitting reasonable contentment, easy social rela- 
tions, circumstances that do not rasp or fret, and to 
create these it is necessary that impulse should be 
submitted to judgment, and that reflection should 
be strong enough to subordinate desire. 

2. The next condition on which the most is to be 
extracted from the world is that our days on earth 
be not only long, but happy. Freedom from misery, 
from sickness, perplexity, heart-ache and corroding 
care, is a condition of successful life. A miserable 
life cannot by any stretch of interpretation be called 
well used life, for misery means waste, dissatisfac- 
tion, discord. How does one make himself happy? 
Not by putting himself out of tune with himself 
and his circumstances, not by running the risk of 
misfortune, jeopardizing his chances of felicity. The 



g6 RELIGION AND IMMORALITY. 

hero may do this ; the philanthropist may do it ; the 
reformer ; but these do not seek happiness. They 
are exceptions to the rule. We must not pitch our 
doctrine on the heroic key. We may be. simple, 
lowly — wise, and say frankly the aim is to make life 
happy. But the thief does not make his life happy ; 
neither does the libertine, or the drunkard, or the 
betrayer of trusts, or the man who puts himself 
seriously out of joint with his fellow men, who 
makes enemies instead of friends, who avoids re- 
sponsibilities, neglects claims, is reckless, violent, 
self-indulgent in offensive ways, brutal, intrigueing. 
Such men all incur the .risk of perpetual unhappi- 
ness. Their very existence is precarious. Hence, 
it has become a trite saying that the people who 
wish to make the most of life, must practise the old 
childlike virtues of sincerity, veracity, consideration, 
kindness. They must not think of themselves first, 
but must be willing to believe that they can learn 
as well as teach, that the right to be served must 
be balanced by the zeal to serve. 

3. Yet a third condition for getting the utmost 
out of life is that life shall be harmless. ,1 do not 
contend that it should be noble, great, magnani- 
mous, or even conspicuously useful. I do not con- 
tend that one should aim to fill the world with the 
fame of his exploits, that he should endeavor to con- 
fer some great benefit upon mankind; it will be 



RELIGION AND IMMORALITY. 97 

enough to abstain from whatever hurts his fellow 
men ; it will be enough so to live that others' living 
may not be harder, that the poor may not be poorer, 
the weak weaker, the hapless more exposed. This, 
it will be allowed, is a simple problem. How to 
make the world better it is very difficult to ascer- 
tain. Mistakes are easy and frequent here. It 
sometimes looks as if there were little beside mis- 
take. The benefactors whom all consent to honor 
as such are few indeed, — differences of feeling being 
as wide as differences of opinion. What one es- 
teems a benefit, another denounces as a detriment. 
But how not to harm the world ; that is a simple 
thing. Do not cheat ; do not lie ; do not betray ; do 
not undermine the physical or moral health ; do not 
make light of social advantages; do not fly in the 
face of immutable facts ; do not impugn the estab- 
lished principles of rectitude ; do not make war on 
institutions that will yield to the power of reason ; 
throw no stumbling block in the way of your neigh- 
bor, but open paths as far as you can ; multiply oppor- 
tunities ; increase privileges ; make it worth while 
for people with whom you associate to say and 
think pleasant things of you. Thus, at least, you 
do no harm, — if you do not directly diminish the 
bulk of evil, you sustain the mass of good ; you are 
conservative of the best ; you belong to the salt of 
the earth ; you are a pillar of strength. The least 



98 RELIGION AND IMMORALITY. 

that can be required of any rational being is that 
he shall live a harmless, an innocent life, as far as 
he can. Do they live innocent lives who are per- 
petually tearing up the rails upon which human 
progress runs, destroying the cumulative efforts of 
their fellow men by rash expressions of passion, 
hampering their hard endeavors to lift themselves 
out of weakness and poverty? No, no, these are 
the people who are dragging back, — oh, bitter and 
sad performance, — who are dragging back this poor 
stumbling humanity, which for thousands of years 
has been pushing its slow way over the sharp slip- 
pery stones, trying to secure steady ground for its 
feet to rest on. Alas for those who do anything to 
make the task of progress any harder than it is for 
a single human being ! 

If now we are to have a religion that helps mo- 
rality instead of hindering it, we must have a new 
conception of religion — a new religion, with new 
creeds, a new order of sentiment, new institutions — 
a religion that is fully sympathetic with man, a re- 
ligion that plants itself upon the conditions of suc- 
cess in this life, that bids men study their human 
duties, and accommodate themselves to their hu- 
man relations ; a human religion, in which the con- 
ception of man is substituted for the conception of 
God ; in which duty, responsibility, obligation, shall 
consist not in the performance of works pleasing to 



RELIGION AND IMMORALITY. 99 

an invisible being outside the world, but in the sin- 
cere effort to secure the happiness, comfort, satis- 
faction, elevation, enlightenment of human beings 
in the world where duty is actually to be done ; a 
religion which shall lay the foundations of piety in 
obedience to the faculties of human nature as they 
are unfolded, and to social relations in proportion 
as they are understood, and which, for new light 
resorts not to prophet, saint or priest, not to sacred 
scriptures, old testament or new, but to the revela- 
tions that come in the form of practical knowledge, 
through careful and conscientious study of the re- 
quirements and conveniences of existence in this 
year of the world's history. 

The religion of humanity, the church of humanity, 
this is what we are coming to ; the conservative 
faith based on observance of the moral law, the re- 
ligion of intelligence. Its creed is not yet written, 
but it is a-making. Its sentiments are scarcely more 
than indicated and suggested. Its duties are slowly 
defining themselves. Its future is shadowy, but 
how immense, how glorious in vision, as it rises 
veiled before the eyes of those who think, feel, as- 
pire. Give us a rational religion to meet a rational 
morality. Then religion will not be chargeable as it 
has been with immoralities, cardinal and deep seated, 
but will lend all its influence, its power and charm 
to the furtherance of those simple arrangements of 



IOO. RELIGION AND IMMORALITY. 

duty and kindness on which the happiness and wel- 
fare of mankind depend. The new rational religion 
shall be a fountain of health, for body, mind, and 
soul, the parent of a new morality— the sweetest 
that the world has ever seen. 






THE 

CONSOLATIONS OF RATIONALISM. 



The consolations of rationalism. Are there any ? 
And if there are, how shall we describe them ? I 
take up a sermon of Theodore Parker, entitled, 
" Conscious Religion a source of joy." In that 
discourse he describes in glowing language the joy 
that gladdens the face of creation and warms the 
heart of man, making one feel as if the world was 
saturated with joyfulness down to the very roots. 
Parker was a joyous man, warm, elastic, vigorous, 
always ready to rejoice with those that rejoiced ; 
at the same time he was a keen observer of human 
life, of warm and active sympathies, one of the 
most tender hearted of men. His daily walk led 
him into the haunts of poverty and wretchedness, 
of disappointment and sorrow, of crime and sin. 
All misery breathed its complaint into his listening 
ear. With open hand and ready speech he minis- 
tered as he could to the evils that afflicted his kind. 
What sustained him ? A faith in providence, and a 



102 THE CONSOLATIONS OF RATIONALISM. 

faith in the hereafter. The deepest conviction in 
the breast of Theodore Parker was the conviction 
of the existence of an absolutely wise, just, good 
and loving being, who ordered the world according 
to a perfect law, in the interest of perfect goodness. 
And he believed in a hereafter where everything 
was to be set right, where all questions were to be 
answered, every problem was to be solved, and hu- 
manity was to come to the fullest possession of its 
powers. Consequently, when Theodore Parker saw 
pain, he saw the purpose behind it. When he saw 
misery, he saw the wisdom that guided it. When he 
looked on sorrow and sin he perceived the divine 
purpose that sweetened the one and sanctified the 
other. 

There was sent me the other day through the 
mail a little pamphlet bearing this title, " Is the 
universe governed by a devil ? " It was evidently 
written by a calm, even-minded man, sympathetic, 
but not exuberantly so ; a man of earnest moral 
sense and quick moral feeling, who felt himself 
called to face the facts of the world and to look 
fate in the eye. Not I should say a deeply relig- 
ious man — certainly not a sentimentalist, not a 
dreamer, not a man of high or elastic hope, but a 
man who grimly and resolutely pushed his way, 
and tried to look at things as they were. The con- 
clusion he came to evidently was that the only 



THE CONSOLATIONS OF RATIONALISM. 1 03 

escape from the conviction that the universe was 
governed by a devil, lay in the belief that it was 
not governed at all. He saw no guiding thread to 
follow, no clue that pointed towards a heavenly 
Jerusalem. He saw the poverty, the misery, the 
crime, the suffering, the sin. The redeeming grace 
and purpose he saw not ; therefore, with sturdy 
blow and inexorable will, he beat down the guards 
which faith and feeling and hope and trust threw 
up to shield and shelter the head of the victim man 
from the strokes that nature had rained upon him. 
It is certain, he says, that to millions of human crea- 
tures life is no boon, but the reverse. They are not 
grateful for it. They count it a curse instead of a 
blessing. They lie down at night with a secret 
wish in their hearts that they may never see an- 
other morning. They wake not to welcome a new 
day, but to bewail a new infliction. They look 
back upon a childhood of hereditary infirmity, of 
pain and neglect, a youth of bitterness, humiliation, 
restraint, repression, upon a manhood beset with 
endless care, worry, disappointment and defeat. 
And there they are now, perhaps with wrinkled 
faces and gray hairs, sitting in the ashes, with strips 
of sackcloth much as ever covering their shrinking 
forms. 

The aspect of life is not happy as one looks at it 
with clear, undimmed, unflinching eye. The sur- 



104 THE CONSOLATIONS OF RATIONALISM. 

face of life, except here and there in sheltered or 
privileged spots, is not glad. The masses of man- 
kind all over the world, except in the most favored 
spots, are poor. Their lives are spent in. hardship 
and trial and struggle. There is a little margin 
perhaps for repose and pleasure, no privilege, 
scarely an hour of the day when they can lie down 
in peace and sleep, no literature, no art, no recrea- 
tion in nature, no joy in society; their children 
perhaps want bread, their wives need care, nursing 
and comforts that they are unable to bestow. All 
their days are spent in the effort to lay up a few 
dollars to bribe the gaunt wolf, want, to stay away 
from the door. Scanty supplies are laid up for the 
rainy day, and these are eked out by low-moaning 
hope that the rainy day may never come. This is 
the lot of all but the favored few. 

A few here and there, in the choice centres of 
civilization, have more than they can use of money, 
time, privilege, opportunity, and those few are 
oppressed by their surplus. They are not capable 
of mastering their own life. They cannot fill out 
their own canvas. They can only eat so much, 
drink so much, spend so much on clothes, amuse- 
ment, recreation, and they lack the taste, the edu- 
cation, the trained skill, the commanding, consuming 
interest in affairs to open new avenues of usefulness. 
They are oppressed with care, anxiety and trouble. 



THE CONSOLATIONS OF RATIONALISM. 105 

The}* must guard themselves against losing what 
they possess. They must watch their investments, 
protect their income. So their life passes away, 
and, in the meantime, there are millions of men and 
women who hold their little all by such a precarious 
tenure that it may be taken away at any moment ; an 
unfavorable season, the failure of a single crop, an 
unlucky investment, a period of war, or famine, or 
pestilence, may desolate their homes, stop their sup- 
plies, cut off their incomes, send them back to the 
ground whence they have painfully emerged. They 
are at the mercy of all the vicissitudes of the mod- 
ern world. They live on the slope of a volcano. A 
Russian Czar, a Turkish Sultan, a German Emperor, 
an English Prime Minister, an American Congress 
holds their fate and the fate of thousands and hun- 
dreds of thousands at the movement of caprice. 
There is a war, and these are the people who suffer. 
The poor become poorer, the wretched are made 
more wretched. Theirs are the hovels that are 
burned ; theirs the farms that are desolated ; theirs 
the husbands, brothers, toilers, bread-winners who 
are tumbled promiscuously into the bloody ground. 
Their widows, sisters, brides mourn, lament, break 
their hearts; their orphaned children wander home- 
less or pitifully struggle up again into light. Thus 
the endless round goes on. It is considered doubt- 



106 THE CONSOLATIONS OF RATIONALISM. 

ful whether the time will ever come when the major- 
ity of mankind will be anything but poor. 

We do not see these things as we pass along the 
street. The superficial observer does not .note the 
signs of sadness. But who, that has an observing 
eye or a feeling heart or a watchful mind, fails to 
see that life is not a joy, a consolation, or a boon to 
the great multitudes of his kind. Add to all this, 
the universal experience of death which confronts 
all mankind, death, universal and omnipresent ; 
death and the imminent danger of death. Rich 
and poor, young and old, happy and sad, all go 
down before it, all are exposed to it. It asks no 
question. It makes no excuses. It does not wait 
your convenience or mine. It does not ask whether 
it is conferring a boon or whether it is inflicting a 
misery. It goes on ruthlessly, and the medical art 
of thousands of years, has not disarmed that ancient 
foe. 

We speak of Providence. We say life is a school; 
experience is an educator ; existence is a discipline. 
Yes, but it is a school where lessons are taught in 
an unknown tongue, where the books are written in 
a tongue that nobody can read, and the teachers use 
signs instead of speech. It is a gymnasium where the 
instructor does not seem to understand the pupils, 
and the pupils do not understand the implements. 
If we could only be sure that a superintending 



THE CONSOLATIONS OF RATIONALISM. 107 

power, wisdom, love, looked after the individual in- 
terest — the individual interest — that is the thing, 
not the interest of ages, not the welfare of man, but 
your happiness and mine, then we could look with 
calm and tranquil eye upon the world. But can 
this be proved ? One may believe it ; may hope for 
it ; may have an abstract conviction of it ; but can 
it be proved ? Have we never seen the righteous 
forsaken and his seed begging bread ? I see it 
everyday of my life. 

No man who walks the streets of a modern city 
any week of any month of the year fails to see 
many instances of unmerited suffering. No doubt 
the education of the race goes on. Mankind in the 
long run are trained, educated and disciplined. 
Humanity is wiser and better for the sorrow, more 
human for the agony. But how is it with the sep- 
arate man and woman ? Is the individual perfected 
by suffering? Now and then he is. There are few 
of us perhaps who cannot think of somebody who is 
better — much better — who is even transformed, 
transfigured, glorified, by the hardship, struggle, 
disappointment, the bitter sorrow of life. I know 
men and women who have been made even saintly 
by it, trained to be conspicuous examples of cour- 
age and virtue, patience and sweetness, in conse- 
quence of it. But for every one of these, I know 
ten who have been crushed by it, soured, embittered, 



108 THE CONSOLATIONS OF RATIONALISM. 

prostrated, demoralized, made utterly vacant. Now 
the argument, if it goes for anything, must go so far 
as to allow that a providence which does not take 
care of the individual, is no providence from whose 
care the individual can take comfort. 

At this point comes in the faith in the hereafter. 
Can this be proved? In order that faith in the 
hereafter may be truly consoling, it must be famil 
arly entertained, a close, near, vital faith, so intimate 
as to be veritably a part of the mind. How many 
who believe in immortality, believe it thus ? 
I have been a clergyman more than thirty years. I 
have sat by the dying in their last hours. I have at- 
tended the funerals of all classes of people, of all 
faiths. I have seen people in all stages of disap- 
pointment, despondency, and grief. I have been in 
close communion with men and women, in the 
hours of deepest and tenderest experience, in their 
times of strength and of weakness. Rarely has 
the faith in immortalility justified its promise in the 
critical emergency. I have not yet found people 
of any creed who welcomed death because it swung 
open the golden doors into another world. I have 
never stood in the chamber of sorrow, or before a 
company of mourners and been made to feel the 
sunshine and air of the heavenly land. The serene 
face of the dead, calm and placid, expressed a silent 
rebuke to the desolated mourners draped in solemn 



THE CONSOLATIONS OF RATIONALISM. IOC) 

and heavy black, wiping the tears from their eyes 
and choking the sobs in their bosoms. Did they 
believe in the hereafter? If I had suggested a mis- 
giving in regard to its certainty in their presence 
they would have been horrified. And yet did they 
believe it ? The faith exists generally as a dogma, 
a tradition, a legend of the Sunday-school, of the 
church. It is entertained in glad hours. It is pro- 
fessed when we are talking at our ease on theologi- 
cal questions ; but in the hour of experience when 
the faith should be a pillar of support, the profess- 
ing believers in it, orthodox people, Christian peo- 
ple, feel it bend and break under the serious 
pressure that they put upon it. 

Then again, before we can call this faith in the 
hereafter a perfect consolation, we must assume a 
great deal which the bare doctrine does not contain. 
Suppose it be proved that we live again, is it 
proved that we shall live happily or contentedly? 
that a perfect compensation will prevail in the here- 
after by direction of perfect wisdom and love ? Are 
we sure that there justice will be rendered to every- 
body who has been wronged, that there the crooked 
will be straight, and the rough smooth? The same 
providence must rule the next life that rules this. 
Is equity the rule here? The same love must 
govern the world to come, that governs the world 
in which we live. Is the world as we see it, sweet 



HO THE CONSOLATIONS OF RATIONALISM. 

with mercy ? What right have we to assume that 
there everything will be conducted on new princi- 
ples ? that there Lazarus will rest sweetly in Abra- 
ham's bosom, while here, to the very last day of his 
life he lay at Dives' gate, grateful to the dogs who 
lapped his wounds? Is not here an unwarrantable 
assumption ! Are we not asking too much? 

Again, to make the consolation perfect that comes 
through belief in a hereafter, there must be an as- 
surance that in the new world there will be a reunion 
of those who were sundered, that we shall find our 
own again. Have we reason for thinking so ? Grant 
the certainty of another life ; can we be perfectly 
sure that the heart's desire shall be gratified there ? 
On this point misgivings will arise. Feel as certain 
of the hereafter as we may in our hours of calm 
thought, yet, when the mind is disturbed and the 
heart is wrung, it needs more than a speculation to 
keep us still. 

And how few, after all, are really consoled ! Men 
forget ; they think of something else ; they become 
interested in other matters ; their attention is called 
away by incidental circumstances ; they fall back 
upon society, their friends, their kindred ; they be- 
come callous and impenetrable. Other influences 
crowd in, the power of routine, the habitude of 
daily life, the incessant occupations that fill the 
hours, the necessity of meeting requirements as they 



THE CONSOLATIONS OF RATIONALISM. Ill 

come, all these lay their deposits upon the mind, 
covering up the waste place, All seems calm and 
sunny on the surface, yet down at the bottom the 
wound will still bleed. 

Why do many men live, we ask? Why not more 
suicides ? These are, all things considered, very 
few. Is it because the dread of something after 
death, " puzzles the will and makes us rather bear 
the ills we have, than fly to others which we know 
not of?" Undoubtedly this is the casein a great 
many instances. I have known myself instances in 
which it was the case. And yet, the numbers that 
have been restrained from suicide by considerations 
of this sort are comparatively few, are not appreci- 
able in the table of statistics, Hope, faith that to- 
morrow may bring something better than to-day, 
that the rain storm m.iy piss over, that the door of 
opportunity so long shut will be opened, that some- 
thing favorable will happen, an instinctive clinging 
to life, a stubborn, headlong determination to fight 
the battle out, these are what keep men alive in 
their want and pain. While there is life there is 
hope. 

The City of London is the largest, the most lux- 
urious city in the modern world. The vicissitudes 
of fortune are greater there than anywhere else. 
The struggle and strain of life are probably more 
intense in London than they are in any other city- 



112 THE CONSOLATIONS OF RATIONALISM. 

And yet, twenty years ago, the number of suicides 
in London was but two hundred and forty. It varied 
from that, on the one side reaching two hundred 
and sixty-six, and on the other side sinking to two 
hundred and thirteen. These differences were 
caused by modifications in the social system, by 
changing circumstances and varying fortunes. In 
the year of the great railway panic, when the foun- 
dations of credit were shattered, when those that 
had had much had little, and those that had little 
had nothing, the rate of suicide touched its highest 
point. The next year showed a slight improvement. 
There were ten suicides less. The next year things 
were still more comfortable, and suicides were less 
frequent by ten more. The number declined in 
good years, when prosperity returned, to two hun- 
dred and thirteen. That was the lowest point. 
There came another convulsion, and the rate was 
raised again to two hundred and fifty. Thus it 
oscillates, not at the bidding of religious convic- 
tions, but according to the price of bread. The 
practical question was, is the burden of life toler- 
able, or is it not? If it is not, we go ; if it is, we 
stay. 

The ordinary consolations of religion having 
spent their force, we come to the consolations of 
rationalism. What are they? Let me frankly 
admit that they are of a very robust and vigorous 



THE CONSOLATIONS OF RATIONALISM. I 13 

sort. They are not comfortable for idlers or senti- 
mentalists, or cowards, but to clear-sighted men and 
brave women, who are prepared to face fortune, and 
make the best of the world as they find it, they 
commend themselves. In the first place the ration- 
alist is released from the necessity of justifying the 
ways of God to men. This may not seem to be a 
great gain, but it is an enormous advantage, a 
saving of power, not to be obliged to prove that 
everything is just and good in the world. To be 
released from the necessity of making constant 
apologies for Providence, of explaining events in 
accordance with the best feelings of the human 
heart, of getting up a grand philosophy by which 
we can account for the ugliest passages in experi- 
ence. This is the problem that has weighed upon 
intellectual men for thousands of years. What 
time it has consumed ! What intellectual energy it 
has exhausted ! What oceans of hope it has 
drained dry! What spiritual vitality it has wasted ! 
— all of it of instant, immediate vital consequence 
to the world. 

Here is one theory much lauded. It is main- 
tained that this is the best possible world. Its 
advocate bends all his energy to prove that it is the 
best possible world ; he pushes uncomfortable facts 
out of sight ; passes over a great many unpleasant 
things ; puts a forced construction upon desolating 



I 14 THE CONSOLATIONS OF RATIONALISM. 

experiences; sees varieties of good in evil ; thinks 
that evil itself is a spectre, a shadow, a cloud pass- 
ing over the surface of the earth : that really there 
is no such thing as pain, or suffering, or sorrow ; 
that it is just as one happens to think. The argu- 
ment has been ably conducted by the finest minds 
of the race, and in the closet it looks plausible. 
But it is terribly racked and strained by experience ; 
and men of keen sensibilities groan and faint under 
the task of supporting it. Many an honest, vigor- 
ous, independent thinker abandons the attempt. 

The Christian has it on his conscience to demon- 
strate the fact that an invisible stream of celestial 
influence flows into the believing patient heart that 
trusts in Christ, keeping it always serene and still, 
pure and sweet, under any of the exigencies of 
the world! In the first place, those who are pre- 
sented as examples of this high inspiration are 
exceedingly few. The great mass of mankind do 
not believe in Christ at all, have no such confidence, 
no such trust, no such hope, and consequently no 
such expectations of grace. The majority of man- 
kind therefore must be ruled out of account ; not a 
cheerful consideration. Then, can the Christian be 
sure that, of the small company of his elect, all are 
secure in their election ? that the stream of Divine 
grace does, or will, descend at need into the afflicted 
breast ? Are there no misgivings in regard to the 



THE CONSOLATIONS OF RATIONALISM. I 15 

fidelity with which the conditions have been kept ? 
Are any justified in a steadfast hope? Is the 
faith unwavering? Is the patience serene? So 
much cannot be affirmed in view of facts apparent 
to even careless observers. 

At all events, the rationalist has no such task laid 
upon him. He takes the world as it is ; has no 
preconceived theory about it. He does not feel 
obliged to make it out a better or a worse world 
than the facts warrant. He will make it out as 
good as he can. He will go behind the facts if he 
can. He will learn more and more about the con- 
stitution of the universe. He will apply science. 
He will call in the aid of philosophy. He will 
make the trained intellect groan and sweat under 
the task of investigation. He will fight against 
despondency; but he will not dogmatize or apolo- 
gize, or declare that things are other than they are. 
He will save his intellectual and moral force to 
make things better than they are. This is an enor- 
mous gain, an unspeakable relief. Well I recollect 
how many years I myself staggered under this bur- 
den of proof ; how I went to chambers of sorrow, 
to houses of want, to cells of crime; looked into 
the sad eyes of the mourners, or pressed my bosom 
against the sufferer's beating heart, and felt bound 
to tell them that things were for the best ; that the 
calamity had not fallen aimlessly; that there was a 



I [6 THE CONSOLATIONS OF RATIONALISM. 

kind intention in it which would be disclosed in due 
time ; that God would mend all. I bade farewell 
to that task long ago, and now I take my brother 
in manly fashion by the hand, look him straight in 
the eye, and, explaining to him life as well as I, in 
my simplicity and ignorance, know how, then leave 
it ; and I find that he is more consoled, because 
more honestly consoled. He is put upon his intel- 
lect, and intellect proves in the end to be his best 
friend. The spirit of truth is the comforter. 

Another consolation belongs to the rationalist. 
He has not imposed upon him the task of saving 
his soul. Those who have not reflected upon it 
have no conception of the pain, the sorrow, the 
mental agony that comes from this responsibility. 
I read the history of some of the noblest men and 
women who have ever lived. They have but one 
aim, one purpose in life — to save their souls. No 
matter what else they do ; no matter how useful 
they are ; no matter how faithfully they cultivate 
their powers, and improve their occasions ; no mat- 
ter how truly they stand in their place and perform 
their duty, unless they can be sure that their soul 
is safe from perdition, it is nothing. Can they ever 
be sure f Have they neglected nothing ? Have 
they punctually attended the sacraments ? Have 
they listened dutifully to the full complement of 
sermons ? Have they practiced constantly the les- 



THE CONSOLATIONS OF RATIONALISM. 117 

sons inculcated by the teacher? Have they re- 
strained their natural desires ? Have they spent 
enough money on their neighbors, and little enough 
on themselves? Have they renounced pleasure and 
ambition? Have they crucified their passions? 
Have they read the Bible thoughtfully and under- 
stood it? Are they sure there is no alloy of skepti- 
cism in regard to the divine text ? Are they in the 
right paths? Have they prayed fervently enough? 
Have they prayed with their hearts, morning and 
night — prayed down to the roots of their souls ? If 
not, can they be sure? The door may open, it may 
not. If it does not, then all has been in vain ; life 
is lost. This perpetual misery and torment we are 
discharged from. Our concern is not to save our 
souls, but to do our duty as life goes on. We can 
consequently train ourselves according to the rules 
of nature, cultivate our native faculties, use our 
given opportunities, enjoy our allotted privileges, 
make the most of society and endowment, free 
from that misgiving in regard to the future which is 
the torment of the superstitious. We can lie down 
and rest. We can sit under the shadow of the trees. 
We can laugh and sing. We can employ our talents, 
such as they are. We need not knock our heads in 
despair against our spiritual limitations. We can 
draw in strength from nature, from the gladness of 
the morning, from the peace of the evening, from 



Il8 THE CONSOLATIONS OF RATIONALISM. 

intercourse with friends. In a hundred ways we 
can appropriate the refreshing waters of life, and 
quench our thirst. Is not that a consolation ? To 
me it is one of the greatest. For in hours of fatigue, 
disappointment, mistake and misgiving, at any 
rate I can, without self-reproach, sit still. I am not 
bound to speculate or wonder. I am released from 
the duty of tormenting myself with the possibilities 
of destiny. I can blamelessly play or sleep, leaving 
my soul to be taken care of in the natural way of 
health and buoyancy, welcoming even thoughtless- 
ness to do whatever kind offices it will. 

Another consideration of immense moment is the 
limitation of moral responsibility which rationalism 
allows. The rationalist knows what he can do, and 
what he cannot do, and is satisfied to do what he 
can, and to leave the rest undone. This is not a 
satisfaction which the ordinary believer can have, 
for he is never persuaded that he has done his duty. 
The limit of responsibility is beyond his sight. He 
must always be clad in armor. He must always 
have the naked sword in his hand. He must be 
always ready for the march and the battle. But 
we, who study ourselves and human life, perceive 
that temperament, heredity, training, talent, oppor- 
tunity, privilege are given in diverse measure. One 
can do much, another can do little, another can do 
nothing. One is hero, another is clown. And we 



THE CONSOLATIONS OF RATIONALISM. I 19 

are content to drop our little drop of dew on the 
desert place where we happen to dwell, and trust 
that the verdure will come. The incubus of a 
sense of unlimited responsibility is taken off. I 
am not answerable for the condition of all sinners. 
I have my own affairs to attend to, you have yours. 
Mind your business, I will mine ; and let each judge 
of his business by his capacity. 

The relief of taking this position fairly and freely, 
once for all, is measureless. The relief is in exact 
proportion to the earnestness of the man. One 
goes now with a free and jocund step. He can enjoy 
his life and reap the benefits of recreation. But 
there is no hearty enjoyment in life ; there is no 
natural rest or recreation; there is no normal recu- 
peration of power, so long as one feels all the 
time that he is not at liberty to sit down, that he 
cannot innocently take a vacation, that he must not 
drowse or dream away the days, or fling himself on 
the grass, or imagine that his work is done ; that he 
must always be looking out for some new duty. 
Ah ! that overtasked word " duty " — how much it 
means of heaviness and sorrow; how much of use- 
less endeavor and chasing after wind ! But for 
those people who go rattling and tearing through 
the world, shouting the word " Duty ! " " Excel- 
sior ! " how many heart strings would yield sweet 
music ! 



120 THE CONSOLATIONS OF RATIONALISM. 

There remains, too, for all men, the consolation, 
the deep and natural consolation of human sympa- 
thy. The Christian has sympathy with Christ, 
with God, with the Virgin Mary, with some imagi- 
nary saint or spirit. The Rationalist cherishes sym- 
pathy with his neighbor who is a sharer with him 
in want and pain. He draws supply of strength 
from humanity itself in visible form. When queen 
Victoria lost her husband, unable to console herself, 
although a good churchwoman, she repaired to a 
hospital, day after day, and read by the bedside of 
some poor woman, who knew not who she was. 
The communion with common misery entertained 
and soothed her. Which was the comforter? The 
bed-ridden woman — not the queen ; not the royal 
head of England, but the lowly subject, indebted 
to charity for food and shelter. 

Sympathy distributes force. That is the secret 
of it. Lose yourself and so gain yourself. When 
the imperial Goethe lost his only son, he studied 
Greek, devoted himself assiduously to the acquisi- 
tion of a new language, and in that employment 
found himself again, yea, more than himself, as he 
communed with those exalted spirits of the past, 
whose grandeur and magnificence, whose sweet state- 
liness still support and gladden heroic minds. For- 
get yourself in others. Let others give you of 
their store. Lay a portion of your burdens on 



THE CONSOLATIONS OF RATIONALISM. 121 

somebody's else shoulders. Let your friend, 
your neighbor, your kinsman, come in and take a 
portion of your burden. So much of it is gone. 

The water finds its level. The tempest abates. 
The high become the low, the low become the high, 
and a salutary diffusion of character equalizes the 
moral condition of men. The ministration is per- 
fectly simple and unceremonious. One can begin 
where he is. A single friend's sympathy is enough ; 
if you are heroic, eager for some achievement, hun_ 
gry for stronger meat, there are reforms waiting for 
strong hands ; there are poor people to be lifted up, 
sick people to be comforted and consoled, melan- 
choly people to be cheered ; they are within your 
reach. Is your heart empty? Let them fill it. Is 
your mind barren and vacant ? The discovery awaits 
you that there are many who have more cause for 
barrenness and vacancy than you have, who can yet 
fling you a crust out of their superfluity. 

The great consoler, after all, is moral health, char- 
acter, manliness, womanliness, the human in every 
breast. The question is a very homely one. Are 
you stronger than destiny, or is destiny stronger 
than you? Can you throw fate, or does fate get 
you down? There is the whole story in a nutshell. 
Increase yourself, multiply and augment your intel- 
lectual resources, strengthen your heart, make your- 



22 



THE CONSOLATIONS OF RATIONALISM. 



self equal to the occasion and the occasion will be 
less than you are, will be tributary to you. 

A traveller in the Alps, with his companion, 
was overtaken by the storm. His companion, 
weaker than he, succumbs to the biting wind and 
the pelting snow and lays down to die. The other 
feels the faintness creeping into his own heart, but, 
rallying himself with great effort, begins to rub into 
life his inanimate friend. In the stress of his labor, 
he forgets the wind, the cold, the bitter snow. His 
own blood begins to tingle in his veins. His cour- 
age, his energy return. As he toils over his pros- 
trate comrade, welcoming every sign of reviving 
consciousness, he becomes a man again. He lifts his 
friend from the ground, and the two fare on their 
way until they reach the hospice where they find 
shelter and warmth. Would you comfort yourself ? 
Comfort your brother. Would you save yourself? 
Save him. You give your life for him, he gives his 
life for you. It is a fair return — give and take. 
We can give no more than we get. We shall not 
give one-half that we receive. 

Life is a battle. It is only by fighting that we 
acquire the power to fight. It is by marching that 
we become inured to exposure and toil. The wear- 
iness comes from inactivity. We cannot sally out 
and take the fatigue of a long campaign, but 
strength will come with exercise. The soldier, after 



THE CONSOLATIONS OF RATIONALISM. I 23 

the campaign, is so much in love with the open air 
that he cannot sleep in a bed. So it is in the wrest- 
ling with fate. We must make destiny our tribu- 
tary, companion, friend, and extort from it the bless- 
ing it would fain withhold. How much there is in 
that Old Testament legend of the patriarch wrest- 
ling at midnight with his unseen foe! "I will not 
let thee go until thou bless me," and he gets the 
blessing. 

The elements beat down our house. We learn 
the next time to build a better. An accident sends 
our ship to the bottom. The next time we provide 
against the accident. A thunderbolt lays in ruin 
our warehouse ; we chain the thunderbolt and com- 
mand it to bear our errands. Steam threatens to 
explode and throw our fabric into the air; we cage 
it, keep it, train it and make it pull our trains. 
Thus we gain in wisdom, in understanding, in com- 
posure, fortitude, courage, cheerfulness, as the work 
of subduing the world goes on. Moral order forms 
itself by slow degrees. Harmony comes in ; peace 
and beauty and music all take their turn. After 
stumbling and falling and groping a hundred times, 
we walk over the surface of the planet. 

We are all soldiers in this war; some major-gen- 
erals, some commanders of lower degree, colonels, 
captains, some men in the ranks. Whatever we do, 
whatever our office, if we do that well, we win. The 



124 THE CONSOLATIONS OF RATIONALISM. 

general-in-chief travels over Europe irom end to 
end, and congratulations greet him wherever he 
goes. Royalty condescends to give him welcome. 
The most honorable do him honor. He is called 
the greatest soldier of the age, the saviour of the 
Union. In the spring we were dropping flowers 
upon the graves of a multitude of men, the un- 
known, the unremembered, who simply gave their 
lives. What would the general have done without 
these? Their fortitude, their patience, their endur- 
ance, their courage, their readiness to go to the 
front, their willingness to return again and again to 
the charge, their determination not to be beaten, 
the persistency with which they stood shoulder to 
shoulder, each in his place, the eye running along 
the polished steel of the rifle, constancy in doing 
this year after year, rest in the hospital, brave re- 
turn to camp, new exposure at the front, and 
at last the patient sinking into the ground, sup- 
plied the moral force of the nation. Who won the 
battle? They did. Who carried the day? Every 
one of these. 

Last autumn, I made a journey between Boston 
and New York. The autumn winds were sighing 
among the trees. The red leaves were dropping to 
the ground and here and there were piled up in 
masses to be carried away by the blast. All was 
desolate, wild and dreary. All spoke of gloom and 



THE CONSOLATIONS OF RATIONALISM. 1 25 

disaster. Lately I made the same journey in the 
spring. Masses of loveliness covered hillside and 
meadow; the forest tree laughed with joy; there 
was beauty and life everywhere. Where did it come 
from? From the incessant, the indomitable life 
that beats in the ground and changes death to life, 
gloom to glory. Those dead leaves that had fallen 
all summer long did their work in disinfecting the at- 
mosphere, cooling the ground. Now that their task 
was over, they fluttered down to their bed to be for- 
gotten. Yet, unless this process were gone through 
every autumn, the massive splendor of the year 
would never greet the mortal eye. Which of the 
myriads of leaves that fluttered down and rotted in 
the ground made the summer? Every leaf ! 



THE DEMAND OF THE AGE 
ON RELIGION. 



As we meet together once more after an unusual- 
ly long separation the old question, returns, why do 
we ever meet at all ? Among the mountains, by 
the sea, on the fragrant hill-side, you have found 
yourselves quite able to dispense with the Sunday 
religious service. Many of you have not been to 
church at all, and have found yourselves quite as 
happy and peaceful and joyous and good as when 
you availed yourselves of the weekly opportunity. 
I confess to you for my own part, that I have asked 
myself every Sunday as it passed by, whether that 
way of passing the Sunday was not as good as any 
other, and the question has more than once arisen in 
my own mind whether it would be worth while to re- 
sume these services. For of what use ? Why should 
an educated, trained man give himself up to the 
preaching of religion in these days when all litera- 
ture is open to him ? Why should a company of 
men and women take the pains, in an earnest world 



128 THE DEMAND OF THE AGE ON RELIGION. 

like this, to meet together and listen to discourses 
on religious themes when politics and business and 
the concerns of life are pressing anxiously for an- 
swer, day after day, and demanding more than all 
the strength that they have ? These are costly hours, 
— costly in money and in time. It does not become 
people who count the worth of money, to waste, as 
so many do waste, their Sunday hours. It does not 
become people who are perpetually complaining 
that they have not time enough for all that they 
have to do, to be spending in idle diversion, in the 
indulgence of their curiosity, perhaps of their dog- 
matic spleen, or their sectarian conceit, time that 
might have been better spent even in sleep. 

The question then recurs, why meet at all? What 
demand does the present generation make on relig- 
ion ? What is the duty of religious teachers to try, 
at least, to do ? What is the serious purpose, (for it 
does not become me to speak of any purpose that is 
not serious), — what is the serious purpose that draws 
us together, week after week through the busiest 
months of the year? Let me try to give a partial an- 
swer to this question this morning. 

My subject is not the demand that religion makes 
on the men of this generation, but what demand the 
men of this generation may fairly make on religion. 
What have they a right to expect religion to do ? 
What is its office at this particular juncture of time, 



THE DEMAND OF THE AGE ON RELIGION. 1 29 

in this 'America of the nineteenth century, in this 
metropolitan city of the continent ? What is our 
business here to-day ? For be it remembered, we 
are not Europeans, but Americans, not English, but 
Americans, and Americans of to-day. The " good 
news" of no past generation is good news for us. 
What is my business, what is yours ? 

The demand that men make upon religion is not 
the same from age to age. It varies very much in- 
deed, — with times and places. The original demand 
made upon religion, the ancient, primitive demand, 
was that religion should rescue men from the domin- 
ion of evil spirits. In all times and portions of the 
world the great figure, dreadful, appalling, has been 
the figure of Satan — a personal devil — no fiction, no 
dream, no creature of the imagination, no spectre 
conjured up by idle fancy, but the dreadfullest 
reality of life. He was the " prince of the powers 
of the air," the ruler of the " world," the king of all 
purely terrestrial concerns, the lord of the working 
life, having his share in the dominion of the ma" 
terial and moral universe, holding state, surrounded 
by his guards and satellites, sending out his edicts, 
issuing his commands, plotting, administering, dic- 
tating, keeping the race of men under his hand, and 
making successful war against the better God who 
sat in heaven, — a being who fairly divided the em- 
pire of the created world. This being, sometimes 



130 THE DEMAND OF THE AGE ON RELIGION. 

seen in visible shapes personally haunting the dark 
places of the earth, the author of pestilence, death, 
famine, war, poverty, want and hunger, storm and 
calamity, this boding dreadful being, having his seat 
in every individual breast, the lord of evil desire, 
the instigator of passion, the " adversary," the 
" tempter," seeking whom he might devour, was 
the terror of mankind. Not a day did he rest, 
never for an instant did he leave the helpless and 
hopeless soul alone, not even in the hours of uncon- 
scious sleep, for the evil dream was his inspiration. 
Such was the being before whom the whole race 
crouched and grovelled in abject terror, and the 
cry was sent up to religion for rescue and protec- 
tion. Come, they prayed, purge the chambers of 
the air ; make life tolerable and decent ; make it 
possible for men and women to fight the good 
fight, to walk a straight way, to plow a straight 
furrow through a " naughty world ; " make it possible 
for mortals to live without shame, and die without 
dread ; make it possible to pass the gates of death 
with the cheering hope that the last agony over, 
mortals should not go into a more extreme agony 
still, and be slaves of a demonic power, world with- 
out end. 

This was the problem. All over the ancient 
world, east and west, all over Europe, Asia, Africa, 
went out this bitter, forlorn, desperate cry for sal- 



THE DEMAND OF THE AGE ON RELIGION. 13I 

vation. " Save my soul from the devil, from the 
devil in this world, from the devil in the next world, 
from the prince of the world, from the king of in- 
iquity." Religion undertook the task. This is the 
task that for thousands of years religion toiled at, 
and in some measure accomplished. It hung its 
melodious bells in the lofty sky-piercing minarets 
of its churches, to disinfect the chambers of the 
air, so that when men clustered together to medi- 
tate and pray, the spirits might not descend upon 
the congregations. It built altars, kept a perpetual 
fire burning upon them, hung consecrated pictures 
and symbols in chancel and chapel, ordained priest- 
hoods, robed them in white, draped them in splen- 
dor, and surrounded them with supernatural powers, 
that they might dispense to the wailing multitudes 
the drops of divine compassion. It built gigantic 
temples, which were cities within themselves, their 
massive walls strong enough to shut out the assail- 
ants from hell. It covered their ceilings with glow- 
ing frescoes depicting the victories of saints, apostles 
and martyrs, the Son of Man sitting in his glory, 
the virgin mother sending her benediction upon the 
faithful ; it stained the windows with scenes of 
sanctity ; it surrounded the very doorways with 
exquisite trellis work of sacred emblems, heads of 
angels, seraphs of wisdom, cherubs of love, counte- 
nances of saints, so that every time the mortal 



132 THE DEMAND OF THE AGE ON RELIGION. 

passed into this building, it entered into an atmos- 
phere of eternal glory. It took a little water from 
the spring, blessed it, consecrated it, put it in sacred 
vessels, fonts or cups, and set them up by the 
portal, so that every one passing into the temple 
might dip the ringer into the healing element, and 
by the simplest mechanical action appropriate pre- 
cious balm of the Holy Ghost. 

This was the task of religion. How faithfully it 
was discharged for thousands of years, let us ac- 
knowledge. Let us confess it with humblest, pro- 
foundest gratitude. But this day of ours makes no 
such demand upon religion. We are not afraid of 
Satan ; we have ceased to believe in his existence. 
The chambers of the air are disinfected by science. 
The astronomer goes to the uttermost confines of 
the solar system, and all is bathed in light. The 
geologist turns over the gigantic tablets of the 
earth, and finds no evil spirit lurking in the pre- 
adamite world. The historian examines every scrap 
of tradition, and the awful word Law is written on 
every leaf. Religion is now aware that it has no 
such mission to fulfill. The traveler visits the Euro- 
pean cathedrals, marvels at their extent, admires 
their splendor, and wonders why they were ever 
built. The modern altar is painted in bright colors, 
and draped with flowers. No bloody sacrifices are 
offered any more. The services are a spectacle, a 



THE DEMAND OF THE AGE ON RELIGION. I 33 

stately, impressive show, meaning nothing. The 
solemn litanies are solemn to imagination only. 
Men and women walk through life with glad step 
and confident heart, without fear. That mission of 
religion, which consisted in checkmating Satan, was 
fulfilled in the old world. The Catholic church, 
which undertook it for Christendom, is now simply 
a tradition, a piece of sumptuous decoration, noth. 
ing beside. 

The next demand made on religion was that it 
should maintain an inflexible standard of opinion. 
It was felt by the earliest reformers that the human 
mind was exposed to ignorance and error unspeaka- 
ble, to wild theories, visionary dreams, to idle and 
misleading speculations. A revelation from God, an 
inspired scripture must be set up and maintained ; 
the cry uttered was a cry for salvation for wanderers 
in a wilderness of thought ; tell us, was the demand, 
tell us what we must believe ; take away our doubts ; 
deliver us from possibility of doubt ; show us the 
truth as it is in Christ. Religion then undertook to 
fulfill this mission. It was the mission of Protestant- 
ism. Protestantism held to the inspired book. It 
pleaded for a divine, miraculously authenticated, 
supernatural revelation. It branded as demonic, 
devastating and spiritually ominous,heresy, infidelity 
materialism, atheism, as it was called. It seized and 
burned the teacher of evil doctrines ; it put its foot 



134 THE DEMAND OF THE AGE ON RELIGION. 

upon men like Servetus, Legate, Wightman and 
many thousands more in England, it is said as many 
as sixty thousand, thus stamping out as well as it 
might the seeds of error that were so ominous of a 
deadly future for the race. This is the work the 
Protestant religion undertook to do. This is the 
work that orthodox Christianity is undertaking to do 
even now. It characterizes as of evil tendency, 
demoralizing and destructive, the scientific, specula- 
tive, philosophising tendencies of the age. 

And yet, this is not a mission, which in its heart 
of hearts the age is demanding that religion shall do. 
No one will undertake to say of course, that it is a 
matter of indifference what views men entertain of 
the world, its constitution, its ordering and govern- 
ance ; that it is a matter of no practical consequence 
whether they believe one thing or another ; that, as 
a rule, one theory of the universe is about as good as 
another for the education of mankind. This is not 
true, certainly it is not true at present, however, it 
may be in the future. But neither is it true that 
Satan, the evil principle, the tempter, lurks in any 
form of opinion. I do not believe that the majority 
of mankind could be happy, or brave, or contented 
on a theory of materialism. Yet, so long as there 
are individual materialists, who are brave, generous, 
sweet, good as the best, though they may be ex- 
ceedingly few in number, rare and exceptional spirits, 






THE DEMAND OF THE AGE ON RELIGION. I 35 

one here and there for whom water bubbles in this 
desert, so long as there are but two or three thus 
favored, it is demonstrated, so far, that the philoso- 
phy of materialism as such, rightly apprehended, 
fairly interpreted, nobly viewed and held, is not 
destructive of human morality, or human peace. I 
do not believe, that any doctrine of atheism, if free- 
ly disseminated through the communities of men and 
women in this generation, would be conducive to 
their happiness or their virtue. And yet, knowing as 
I do individual men and women who believe in no 
God, who never pray, never worship, to whom the 
soul of man is the finest expression of etherial mat- 
ter ; so long as I know this and I do know it ; so long 
as the belief I have been describing, is here and 
there, as I am sure it is, consistent with the posses- 
sion of heroism, disinterestedness, even of devotion, 
consecration, sweetness of sympathy, so long I 
should be faithless to myself if I did not declare 
that, in my opinion, there is nothing inherently 
deadly to the virtue of mankind in the theory of 
atheism. I am far from believing that a disbelief in 
the immortality of the human soul would conduce 
to the happiness or welfare of men and women. I 
cannot think so, and yet I know men and women 
more than one, scores of them indeed, some the 
sweetest, noblest, most simple hearted, most com- 
passionate, most full of self-abnegation, thoughtful- 



136 THE DEMAND OF THE AGE ON RELIGION. 

ness of others, forgetfulness of themselves, who 
anticipate for themselves no hereafter. I therefore 
cannot say that a disbelief in the immortality of the 
soul is necessarily corrupting, indispensable in all 
cases to human excellence. It is not. So long as it 
is possible for men to fulfill the utmost of which 
their nature is capable upon any particular theory of 
the world, one theory as well as another, the de- 
mand is not timely or imperative that religion shall 
maintain an inflexible standard of faith. On the 
contrary, it is perfectly safe now to let the human 
mind play freely upon all the chords of the intellect, 
to entertain all problems, to question, investigate, 
doubt, penetrate to the centre, as far as it can, of all 
speculation and to " prove all things." It is perfect- 
ly safe now for the propagandists of any theory to 
have freedom of utterance ; nay, we may call for the 
fullest encouragement of thoughtfulnessand research. 
This being so, the Protestant form of the demand 
on religion must be dismissed. 

Because a mode of religion has done magnificent- 
ly in one generation, it does not follow that it will 
do well in another. To have succeeded once is 
enough ; it is a pledge that the success has been 
achieved, that the allotted work has been performed. 
Providence is satisfied. There is no living man 
more cordially willing than I am to give the fullest 
meed of praise to what the Roman Catholic church 



THE DEMAND OF THE AGE ON RELIGION. I 37 

has done in its long day. I read' its history with 
great interest and satisfaction. I have stood in its 
mighty cathedrals with an overpowering sense of 
awe ; I have lingered by its altars ; I have studied its 
art ; I can testify that it was the friend of man when 
man was friendless. It is on record that it lifted up 
those who were bowed down, that it took its stand 
by the side of the weak against the strong, that it 
represented a pure democracy in an age when kings 
and emperors kept the people under their feet; that 
it ministered to the warmest hopes of man ; that it 
gathered up the way-worn children of humanity in 
its arms and nursed them. I can never forget this ; 
I can never think without deep and tender gratitude 
of the way in which it placed the sweet Madonna 
over every temple, hung her picture over every 
shrine, set her image above the altar and brought poor 
women and forsaken girls, the tempted, the broken- 
hearted, the ignorant and misled, brought them to 
their knees before the mother of heaven, and com- 
forted them with the thought of an infinite compas- 
sion. It does not become us, ever to say a bitter 
word against a faith that could do that. Heaven 
grant that our faith may ever be able to do any- 
thing like it. All this church has done for art, for 
learning, for industry, for sympathy and reconcilia- 
tion, for boundless good will, let us cheerfully, more 
than cheerfully, let us thankfully confess it. But 



I38 THE DEMAND OF THE AGE ON RELIGION. 

does it follow that, because in the "dark ages" in 
the chaotic, agitated world of Europe, the church 
did this grand human service, does it follow that 
now, here in New York it can answer your questions 
and mine, can meet the foes of to-day, can solve the 
problems raised, only the day before yesterday? 
The very fact that it did what it did, makes it impos- 
sible to do this. It has not the tools; it does not 
understand the conditions ; it is not master of the 
methods. It does not comprehend the problems. 
The most fragrant oil becomes rancid in a short 
time. The fish taken from the sea, which the 
epicure will pay any price for, which teases his 
palate with a sensation that nothing else produces, 
the beggar loathes after a few days. So it is with 
that majestic old church. Give it your admiration, 
your thankfulness, your cordial blessing and bid it a 
tender farewell. 

Cannot we do justice to Protestantism and its 
great names, — to Martin Luther, to John Calvin, to 
Melancthon, to Erasmus, to the scholars who toiled 
over the midnight lamp, ready to give their bodies 
to the flames if so be that no otherwise the truth 
might be maintained ? There was in the early peri- 
ods of the Reformation a deep cry for truth. - Give us 
a satisfying sense of divine things. No more dumb 
show, no more formalism, no more priest-craft, no 
more sacrifices on the altar ; the intimate, personal 



THE DEMAND OF THE AGE ON RELIGION. 1 39 

spirit union with the lord of love, that we must 
have.' John Calvin, — let us not only remember that 
he burned Servetus, let us remember the effectual 
reforms that he wrought, — Martin Luther — these 
men and their successors came forward, stood in the 
breach, and for three hundred years met as they 
could, this imperious demand. The more faith- 
ful they were and are to that call, the less their 
ability to deal out full justice to the problems that 
await us. It is no reflection upon Protestantism 
that it fails to meet the wants of the present gener- 
ation. The more men believe in it, the more con- 
scientious orthodox Christians are, the more incap- 
able they must be of doing what you and I are 
called on to do. 

It is an open secret that neither Romanism nor 
Protestantism meets the practical wants of to-day. 
The political world rolls on its course heedless of 
the evangelical religion. The business world toils 
and spins without consulting priest or Testament. 
It was only this last summer that a commission 
made up of sober, trustworthy men, Christian men 
by profession, sat and heard the complaints of labor. 
A witness on the part of the poor reads passages 
from the Old Testament in regard to the duties of 
the rich to the poor — passages of undoubted pith 
and point. The chairman of the committee said, 
quite as shortly as the case required, M We have 



140 THE DEMAND OF THE AGE ON RELIGION. 

nothing to do with this." He had nothing to do 
with it. The Bible was out of place in the discus- 
sion. The more earnestly the chairman made his 
declaration, the more true was what he said. These 
were new questions which had just come up. The 
Bible has no answer to them, no solution for prob- 
lems that exercise us all the days of our life. We 
must learn new methods, acquire the use of new 
tools. The questions that tear us to pieces are 
questions that living minds must meet and answer 
as well as they can, and only living minds can an- 
swer at all. The bare fact that religion, Roman and 
Protestant, fails to meet these new demands is no 
imputation upon it, for they have not failed to meet 
other demands of a very different sort, at the time 
they were made. 

What are the demands, then, which the men of 
this generation make on religion? First of all is 
the requirement that religion, call itself by what 
name it will, using what methods it will, keep up- 
permost, or try to keep uppermost, the intellectual, 
the moral, the spiritual nature of man. Religion 
must be an educator, an inspirer, a quickener of nat- 
ural human endeavors. In this generation it has 
become common to break down dividing lines be- 
tween good and evil, to obliterate time-honored dis- 
tinctions and to put forward as philosophy what 
never before has been dignified by that glorious 



THE DEMAND OF THE AGE ON RELIGION. 141 

word. It is customary, in some quarters, to con- 
found principle with passion, to maintain in words 
that principle is only another form of passion ; that 
duty and desire are at heart the same, that love and 
lust are but different phases of the same emotion, 
that the animal nature is sacred, as being natural, 
nature being the warrant for all impulse. It has, 
we may even say, become the fashion to deify dirt. 
It is the duty of religion in such an emergency, call 
itself by what name it will, to stand for intellect, 
reason, conscience, sympathy, for nobleness, justice, 
truth, elevation, aspiration — for whatever dignifies, 
exalts, purifies, beautifies the individual character. 
The religion that shall do this, as the friend of art, 
literature, music, the refining influences of life, 
whether it be in fashion Roman Catholic or Protest- 
ant, Christian or Brahmanic, Buddhist or Moham- 
medan, the religion that shall do this will be the 
religion of the earnest portion of the age. If the 
Roman Catholic church, with its enormous wealth, 
its renown, its antiquity, its power over human con- 
science, its sway over human imagination, would 
undertake to do this work, to keep men up, purify, 
ennoble and exalt them, it would be once more the 
church of Christendom. Nothing would stand be- 
fore it. It would have no competitors. I would 
join it to-morrow on these terms. But it cannot. 
History forbids. Destiny forbids. It is against the 



142 THE DEMAND OF THE AGE ON RELIGION. 

nature of things that such an attempt should be 
made. It has not the implements. It cannot cher- 
ish the purpose. It cannot discard its traditions, or 
depart from its course. It is wedded to power; it 
clings to wealth ; it is jealous of its dominion ; it is 
pledged to maintain the integrity of its organiza- 
tion. It cannot think of undertaking new tasks. 
In fact, it turns the cold shoulder and must turn the 
cold shoulder on all who take in hand work that it 
declines. 

If orthodox Protestantism, abandoning its at- 
tempt to support an exclusive revelation, would 
turn the full current of its power into this one chan- 
nel of practical influence by illumination, enlighten- 
ment, refinement, the so-called " Liberal " churches 
would be deserted. But Protestantism cannot leave 
its old and well-worn track. It is committed to the 
doctrine of the inspiration of the Bible. It cannot 
abandon its creeds. It must be faithful to the old 
dogmas. It must cling to the ancient symbols and 
words. It cannot bt. anything else than what it has 
been. 

For this reason a religion must come forward, a 
new form of religion, free, open, independent, that 
will undertake in its own way this gigantic task. It 
must do what science, philosophy, education, in 
their way try to do, and, being a religion, it must 
add to this the last graceful touch of dignity, ele- 



THE DEMAND OF THE AGE ON RELIGION. 143 

gange, refinement, purity, giving to knowledge 
charity, and supplementing truth by faith and hope. 
One more demand is made on religion by the pre- 
sent generation. The need of this age is for sympa- 
thy, mutual understanding and recognition between 
high and low, strong and weak, great and small, 
rich and poor, wise and simple, good and bad, — a 
practical recognition of brotherhood, the acknowl- 
edgement of fellowship, the obliteration of caste, 
the diminution of local and sectarian prejudice, the 
free, open-handed, cordial admission on the part of 
every human being of the wants, needs of every 
other human being. This want, deeply felt, pas- 
sionately uttered, breaks out in socialism, in com- 
munism, in the strikes and labor-unions that terrify 
the community. This animates the rebellion of the 
poor against the rich. These labor reformers owe 
their strength to a hurr-an feeling that flames, or 
is thought to flame in their breasts. All this tur- 
moil of unrest, this clamor of want, these agonized 
prayers of suffering men are Series for sympathy, 
recognition, human support and help. The desti- 
tute seem to say: "Hold out your hand to us; 
make us feel that we are of the same family of God ; 
tell us that we belong to the same race with your- 
selves : do not hate us ; do not despise us." Nothing 
more than this is really asked. The immediate 
claim is on the surface. The real need is that heart- 
need of sympathy. 



144 THE DEMAND OF THE AGE ON RELIGION. 

It is for religion to meet that want, for religion 
alone can. It alone has the sovereignty over human 
nature, the power to touch the depths of feeling, 
to stimulate purpose, to draw men away from their 
selfish attractions, and open to them the region of 
disinterested endeavor, and unconditioned love. Its 
symbols are the cross, which means surrender of the 
individual to the universal, and the cup which 
means the mingling of the universal with the indi- 
vidual. It is, besides, not the possession of the 
instructed, as science is, not the prerogative of the 
disciplined, as philosophy is, but the privilege of 
mankind. It appeals to the veneration of the ages. 
The task is for religion. Science cannot undertake 
it — science is engrossed by the pursuit of knowl- 
edge. Philosophy cannot attempt it — philosophy 
is engrossed by the effort to classify knowledge. 
Religion must enter on the duty. This mighty 
spirit, which is more than science or philosophy, 
of which they are the servants, friends, co-workers, 
but for which they cannot be substitutes, this 
mighty spirit which alone now has the power to stir 
the human heart, wake up the human conscience 
to heroic achievement, must break its bands and 
spring forth to meet a desire which has at length 
become articulate and imperious. 

We are a common-sense people. We believe in 
practical things, not in theory or speculation. So- 



I 



THE DEMAND OF THE AGE ON RELIGION. I45 

cialism fails. Communism comes to nothing in 
a community like ours. It has no root. The fears 
entertained in the early summer of riot and uproar, 
attended with flame and bloodshed, proved to be 
unfounded. The summer went noiselessly by. 
There was no disturbance. No one has been killed, 
no property has been destroyed. There was no 
violence or excess. The solid, sober, common sense 
of the American people takes care that society shall 
not be overturned. We insist upon things that will 
work. We demand that ideas shall justify them- 
selves by their performance. The speculations may 
be very fine. The visions may be very beautiful. 
The dreams may be splendid ; but a common-sense 
people insist that business methods are the only 
methods that can be depended on, and that com- 
mon sense, a " saving common sense," will carry us 
through any tribulation that we may be threatened 
with. Only let religion assume this common sense 
as its basis, rear upon it a lofty structure of aspi- 
ration, of moral earnestness and feeling, and once 
more reconciliation between this world and the next 
will be accomplished ; once more man will cherish 
in peace his divinest dream ; once more with steady 
steps he will take hold upon the eternal life. 



THE DEMAND OF RELIGION ON THE 
AGE. 



Last Sunday I spoke of the demands which the age 
was entitled to make and did make on religion. 
This morning I wish to consider the demands that 
religion makes on the age. There are those in mod- 
ern times and in our own community, who insist 
that religion has no right to make any demand on 
the age whatever. Religion, they tell us, has had its 
day and a very long day ; a day of power amount- 
ing to sovereignty, a day of opulence, dignity, com- 
mand, honor, tribute from all mankind ; a day when 
it has had human affairs, secular as well as spiritual, 
at its disposal. It has lived its life and now must 
give place to other powers, to philosophy, science, 
literature, politics, social reform, newly born Titans 
who claim their opportunity to dictate to men the 
terms of life. There is much reason in this argu- 
ment, which yet as a teacher of- religion I venture 
to combat, still pressing its claim to respect, rever- 
ence and obedience. Religion is the oldest spirit in 
the world ; the most venerable. It has been, in its 
day, the teacher of art and literature yes, of philoso- 



I48 THE DEMAND OF RELIGION ON THE AGE. 

phy and of science. For philosophy and science 
have lain shivering babes in its cradle. It has been 
the benefactor of mankind in ages when they had no 
other friend. It has stood by the poor when they 
were the most abandoned. It has raised the despised 
when they were tottering and crushed to the earth. 
It proclaimed the brotherhood of man in ages that 
were torn with civil and social strife. It has incul- 
cated sentiments of democracy when aristocracy 
wore the crown and bore the sceptre and flaunted its 
banners in the air, and imperalism held possession 
of the secular world. Hence, I maintain that this 
power which has swayed human conscience for 
thousands of years, which has had a hold on human 
hopes and fears such as no other power ever had or 
ever can hope to have, this power which has opened 
the gates of the future to the contemplation of 
mortality, which has sheltered mankind beneath 
convictions of a divine justice, and has consoled 
them by thoughts of a heavenly care, has its right 
still to speak, and its title to be heard. It makes its 
demand on the age, what is the substance of that 
demand ? 

First and foremost, from the beginning to the end, 
under every form of ministration, in every speech, in 
ail tones and accents religion has demanded that 
man should expand himself to the utmost measure of 
his nature ; should acknowledge his intrinsic great- 



THE DEMAND OF RELIGION ON THE AGE. 149 

ness, lay aside his limitations of condition, break 
through his prejudices, live out of himself in univer- 
sal ideas, purposes and aims. However disguised, 
concealed, perverted, this idea has been presented ; 
whether it inscribed on its shield the name of Buddha, 
of Confucius, of Moses, of Christ or of Mahomet, 
whether as the duty of recovery from fall, or as the ful- 
fillment of original destinies, this has been its de- 
mand that human nature should expand, should grow, 
should reach out beyond itself. What are its great 
words? Aspiration, worship, faith, hope. The 
greatest word of all, " love," is hers. This word that 
sounds the whole gamut of human emotion, that 
voices every sentiment of the human heart and 
touches every chord of human sensibility, word which 
expresses the deepest, warmest, most ecstatic feelings 
of heart and soul, whether among lovers on earth or 
angels in heaven, — this word is pre-eminently a word 
of religion. The word "justice," the immortal word 
11 truth," the meaning of which has never been 
sounded, belongs to religion. 

What are its ideas ? God, the symbol of the " all 
covering heaven," studed at night with silvery stars, 
and watched over all day by the glorious orb of 
light. Immortality, a boundless future of life, and 
felicity perfect and eternal. These have ever been 
conceptions of religion — of every religion. For no 
religion has been so meagre and niggardly that it 



150 THE DEMAND OF RELIGION ON THE AGE. 

would cabin and crib the human intellect or soul 
within any constraining definition. The definitions 
of religion were not meant to confine but to direct. 
They were designed as channels not as dams. All 
limitation is essentially irreligious. Not in the name 
of religion but in the name of some form of doubt 
or fear, has it been instituted. It is the offspring of 
dread ; the product of skepticism. The dogmatists 
assume the responsibility of limiting the human soul. 
A doctrine of inspiration that shuts up the divine 
spirit of wisdom within the leaves of a single book, 
that consigns the whole word of God to the keeping 
of a special literature, saying this and this only is 
from heaven ; would you know the right way, the 
safe way, the true way, the way that leads to felicity, 
you must study this volume on your knees ; the 
doctrine that makes the classic literatures of the 
world, Greek, Latin, German, French, English, sec- 
ondary and subordinate to the bible, a doctrine that 
characterizes these as the words of men, the bible as 
alone the word of God, is essentially irreligious. Be- 
cause so far as it limits the human reason so far it 
confines the human soul ; so far it counteracts the 
desire of the spiritual nature to find its highest satis- 
faction. Religion, therefore, demands, that the lit- 
tle and belittling systems shall be discarded as hav- 
ing had their day. 

It does not follow that one cannot revere the bible, 



THE DEMAND OF RELIGION ON THE AGE. I 5 I 

for what is venerable in it, that one may not go so 
far as to call it a sacred book ; all religion demands is 
that when men call it so they shall call all the other 
books that uplift, sanctify, and purify the mind — 
religious likewise. Whether they be prose or poetry 
ethical or lyrical, drama or fiction, whatever name 
they bear, by whatever authorship they are put 
forth into the world, if they do this service, if they 
teach, ennoble, elevate, beautify, then do they be- 
long among the sacred, yes, the inspired scriptures. 
The most religious men are they who adopt litera- 
ture, not they who prescribe it ; they who trust rea- 
son with the bible, not they who snatch the bible 
from reason's hand ; they who diffuse, not they who 
imprison the quickening life of spirit. 

Do we not honor the Christ ? Do we not render 
the fullest tribute to his moral majesty, his spiritual 
beauty, the loveliness of his character ? But the 
Christs are many. There stands the immortal 
Buddha-; there is Socrates who drank the poison 
and laid himself down to die without a murmur ; and 
there is the great Mahomet, who led his people out 
of idolatry into the knowledge of the one God, "the 
compassionate, the merciful ; " and all along the 
course of history are the great names of wise men, 
who, in the name of God, immortality, aspiration, 
worship, moral conquest, have called on men to make 
war over prej udice and limitation. These are the pro- 



152 THE DEMAND OF RELIGION ON THE AGE. ■ 

phets of religion. These are the heads upon which re_ 
ligion places its crown. It is then becoming in those 
who stand upon the ground of religion, to say to the 
churchmen and theologians : widen your definitions, 
enlarge your creeds; seek new truth; call upon science, 
call upon philosophy to make larger and larger con- 
tributions to the knowledge of divine things. The 
word of God is not bound. 

This in all time is the cry of religion : 

" Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, 

As the swift seasons roll ! 

Leave thy low-vaulted past ! 
Let each new temple, nobler than the last 
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 

Till thou at length art free, 
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea." 

Once more, in immediate connexion with what 
has been said, the demand of religion is that the in- 
dividual shall live worthily of himself, shall keep his 
reason uppermost, shall postpone passion to princi- 
ple, shall exalt his highest love above his lowest, 
shall hunger after moral truth and greatness, shall 
love, seek and pursue that which ennobles and digni- 
fies, not that which degrades his humanity. This in 
all time under all aspects has been the demand of 
religion. It has wrought in the interest of the soul. 

Once more, what are its great words ? Duty, con- 
secration, disinterestedness, devotion, conscience, 
righteousness. What are its great types? Heroes 



THE DEMAND OF RELIGION ON THE AGE. I 53 

who have fought, prophets who have borne their 
witness to the truth, confessors who have been will- 
ing to wear the bloody shirt, martyrs who have gone 
to the stake, saviours who have been crucified in 
order that they might rise. What are its great sup- 
ports ? The men in whose honor temples have been 
dedicated and rites consecrated, and priesthoods 
ordained. 

This demand of religion is austere, for religion 
is an austere spirit. It is no light pleasure-loving holi- 
day thing. We are told that, many years ago,when the 
first great French dancer appeared in this country, 
two of the lights in philosophy and religion were in 
attendance at one of her public performances. After 
ihe execution of a specially difficult pirouette, one 
turned to the other and said, " this is art." " No," 
said the other, " this is religion." It was neither 
art nor religion ; it was simply a display of physical 
vigor, a triumph of educated grace. There was 
no moral or spiritual quality in it ; no element of 
goodness or greatness, of elevation, purity, or dignity. 
There was no suggestion of immortal beauty, noth- 
ing, in the best sense of the word, artistic. It was 
merely the perfection of animal form, the exuber- 
ance of creaturely power, that bewitched the senses ; 
yet, so far were distinctions obliterated in these 
fervid minds that the words art, religion could be 
confounded with the exhibition of an acrobat. 



I 54 THE DEMAND OF RELIGION ON THE AGE. 

There is in the interior of our State, in one of the 
cities, a church — an orthodox church — which con- 
bines everything, not only that educates but that 
pleases and amuses. Its roof covers the most dis- 
similar things. On Sunday there is preaching in 
the auditorium. There are rooms for social meetings 
for feasting and dancing. There is a play room for 
children, provided with apparatus for their amuse- 
ment and entertainment. There are bath-rooms, in 
fact there is provision for the satisfaction of the 
common and the uncommon, the natural and the 
supernatural wants of mankind. The minister argues 
that as religion largely interpreted, takes cognizance 
of all these things, is not the foe, but the friend of 
cleanliness and decency, of amusement and health, it 
must take all these under its protection ; and this is 
true, but the relations and proportions must be ob- 
served. Different things must not be confounded, 
Because men are amused, are they religious ? Be- 
cause they are happy or clean, are they religious ? 
Because they enjoy themselves, are they religious? 
Because they laugh, sing, dance, or play the violin, 
are they religious? Let all these things be done by 
all means, let them be done a thousand times more 
than they are, for in this sad work-a-day world, men 
need recreation of many kinds, still, it behooves us 
to remember that the spirit of religion is, as such, 
an austere spirit. When these have accomplished 



THE DEMAND OF RELIGION ON THE AGE. I 55 

all they can, is it any guarantee that the clean, prop- 
er, accomplished people will worship nobler things, 
will pursue duty with a more consecrated purpose, 
will long more earnestly after the spiritual life? 
Nay, when that great spirit, which we call religion, 
comes upon men, they show themselves able to 
postpone pleasure, to forego amusement and dis- 
pense with happiness ; they can bear not to see plays, 
not to laugh, nor to sing. They can even endure to 
suffer and sorrow in the endeavor to achieve the 
character which dignifies and ennobles men. If 
this spirit .of religion lifts secondary interests up, uses 
them, welcomes them, consecrates them to worthy 
services, it is well ; but then they are servants not 
peers, its aids not its equals, and they do their best 
when they help on the work to which it is called. 

This demand on our age is one that is easily for- 
gotten. The favorite word of our time is hap- 
piness. The foremost desire of our time is to be 
amused, to have pleasant experiences. The aspiration 
of our time, if aspiration it can be called, is that all 
may be sleek and smooth, that the velvet path of 
dalliance may be open before the feet and that 
thorns and briars be weeded out. The kingdom of 
heaven has degenerated into a " summer land," 
which is reached by no toilsome road, but by the in- 
evitable dispensation of death. Yet, the old wisdom 
is as wise as it ever was. There is no royal road to 



156 THE DEMAND OF RELIGION ON THE AGE. 

felicity. Moral grandeur is not an accident, but an 
achievment. They who would be great, they who 
would attain to dignity and sweetness of nature 
must at times walk through thorn tracts, and tread 
upon heated plowshares, seeing before them no sum- 
mer but a land where heroes, reformers and saints 
have meekly trod, which, if it be smooth, has been 
made so by bleeding feet. Smooth it may be, but it 
is not soft with grass or flowers. 

Once more, a demand that religion has always 
made on the world is that the sentiment of brother- 
hood should be cherished and cultivated ; the idea 
of brotherhood, of kindred on the spiritual plane, the 
belief that all men are the children of the same 
father, that life is essentially the same discipline for 
all, that as all enter the world through the same 
portal and through the same portal go out of it, so 
for all, life's experience is in substance the same, 
life's experiment similar in its issues, the world a 
school in which the mind of man must be trained 
by difficulty and struggle, if so be that progress may 
ensue from it. Remembering this, religion in all 
ages, has preached compassion, sympathy, fellow 
feeling, pity, tenderness. It has told the great that 
they were great in order that they might help the 
small. It has bidden the rich to bear in mind their 
stewardship, to remember that they were rich in 
order that they might bless the poor. It has urged 



THE DEMAND OF RELIGION ON THE AGE. ] 57 

on the wise the lesson of service to the simple, re- 
minding them that as the poor and toiling labor 
that they may have bread, they should labor to give 
in return light, life and immortality. The senti- 
ment of sympathy is not altogether in accordance 
with the spirit of our age. The spirit of the age is 
commercial, and the commercial spirit is not a spirit 
of brotherhood, but a spirit of competition. Its 
animating temper is passion for gain ; its method is 
rivalry. It does indeed seek to establish intercourse 
between the tribes of men and the remote parts of 
earth. It brings races together ; it opens a way 
through mountain ranges ; it makes the ocean a con- 
necting link instead of a barrier; it forms compacts 
and leagues for the common advantage. But this it 
does not in the interest of brotherhood, but in the 
service of wealth, wealth of the capitalist, the manu- 
facturer, the merchant. Chicanery, pillage, rapine, 
war are not infrequently its accompaniments, its 
agents. It will desolate this region that it may re- 
fresh that ; incidentally it arouses jealousies, foments 
discords, disturbs kind feeling. However indirectly 
it may promote fraternity, directly it tends to stir up 
strife which religion is called on to heal. 

Its voice has never been inarticulate. I could 
read you verses, golden words from any scrip- 
ture of any age in the world, all to the same 
purpose, all emphatic, all earnest, all imperative on 



158 THE DEMAND OF RELIGION ON THE AGE. 

this point. There is no bible ancient or modern, 
Asiatic or European, however full of formalities, ex- 
ternalities, superstitions, that does not contain chap- 
ter on chapter devoted to this doctrine of charity, of 
equity, consideration, love. Do not fasten upon the 
doctrine the abuses that it has been made to 
countenance. Religion oftener speaks out of the 
heart than out of the judgment. I admit that 
sentimental charity, born of emotion, the philan- 
throphy of imagination, has been a great evil,, and 
even a curse to the world. I admit that the doctrine 
of charity as taught in the bible, old testament and 
new, the doctrine that the disciple must sell all he 
has and give to the poor in anticipation of treasures 
in heaven, must give tithes of all he possesses, may 
be and has been injurious to mankind. Nay, stand- 
ing here as a teacher of religion, I venture to affirm 
that the doctrine of alms giving, so earnestly and un- 
remittingly and uncompromisingly preached by 
Jesus himself, the doctrine of the sermon on the 
Mount is open to this objection ; that the new testa- 
ment, if taken literally at its word and rigidly ap- 
plied, would be fatal to any reasonable or just dis- 
tribution of human affairs, and weakening to human 
character. The doctrine of the new testament, how- 
ever, is not the teaching of religion in its broad 
human tendency. It is local and occasional rather 
than universal. It is the doctrine of a peculiar 



THE DEMAND OF RELIGION ON THE AGE. I 59 

epoch, a special crisis in Hebrew affairs. It was 
promulgated under stress of historical emergency, 
and was addressed to people in certain conditions of 
life ; not a universal doctrine, therefore, not human 
in the proper sense of the word. The doctrine of 
Moses was suitable to the age and exigencies of 
Moses, the organizer of a race. The doctrine of 
Jesus was suitable to a generation that expected the 
world to come to an end, and a new order to be im- 
minent. The doctrine of Paul was based on a simi- 
lar anticipation. That expectation has passed. No 
convocation of clergy will be able to revive it. We 
live in a new world, under a new system, and we 
cannot afford in the name of religion, to take even 
from these books, or from holiest lips, words how- 
ever venerable and sweet from association, and 
make them the guides of conduct in a matter so 
vital as this. They may give us inspiration, direc- 
tion they cannot give. Grant that science recoils 
too abruptly from the sentimental view; still its re- 
coil is reasonable. Science says "help has been 
overdone, love enfeebles and demoralizes." The 
word " sympathy " ought never more to be spoken 
as a word of authority. Men must learn to help 
themselves, must take their chance and earn the 
title to live. The " survival of the fittest " is the doc- 
trine that most commends itself to the economsist 
of the new world. The fittest ! that is perchance 



l6o THE DEMAND OF RELIGION ON THE AGE. 

according to the vulgar apprehension, the strongest, 
the most energetic, the most enduring, the most 
pushing and persistent, shall we say, speaking for 
the more brutal class, the most heartless, the most 
unsympathetic, the most violent and unscrupulous 
who rely on force without justice and cunning with- 
out wisdom ? There are those who put this practi- 
cal interpretation on the doctrine. It was but the 
other day that one said to me, speaking of the suf- 
fering and horror at the South from the yellow 
fever: "It serves them right; they should have 
learned how to drain their towns. They should not 
drink impure water ; they should not breathe tainted 
air; they should not build on malarious soil." But 
how many of us are wise enough to abstain from 
unwholesome practices, even when we know them 
to be unwholesome ? And how many are there, 
even in communities called enlightened, who know 
what is unwholesome, and what is not ? The know- 
ledge of sanitary conditions is even yet confined to 
the few in the centres of modern civilization. How 
could those poor people at the South, upon whom 
pestilence suddenly sweeps down with its wings of 
death — how could they have known that it was com- 
ing ? How could they have provided the way of 
escape? How could they have secured themselves 
against its assaults ? Pity goes in advance of intel- 
ligence. Love anticipates light. Over and above 



THE DEMAND OF RELIGION ON THE AGE. l6l 

the domain of knowledge there is scope and de- 
mand for endless compassion and helpfulness. 
Religion, pure and reasonable religion, takes the 
middle ground, reconciling love and light. Religion 
says " do what you can, but what you do, do wisely. 
Be careful how you demoralize, break down or 
weaken a single human will. Build people up ; teach 
them to build themselves up. Diffuse knowledge, 
get more knowledge to diffuse. But always remem- 
ber that the suffering, sick, weak creature is your 
brother, none the less so for being ignorant. Re- 
member, " the quality of mercy is not strained. It 
blesseth him that gives, and him that takes. Tis 
mightiest in the mightiest. It becomes the throned 
monarch, better than his crown, and human power, 
does then seem likest God's, when mercy seasons jus- 
tice." This is the voice of religion ; always will be, 
always must be to the end of time. Religion stands 
and cries: 

Children of men ! the unseen Power, whose eye 
Forever doth accompany mankind, 
Hath look'd on no religion scornfully 
That men did ever find. 

Which has not taught weak wills, how much they can ? 
Which has not fall'n on the dry heart like rain ? 
Which has not cried to sunk self-weary man ; 
Thou must be born again ? 

Children of men ! not that your age excel, 
In pride of life the ages of your sires, 
But that ye think clear, feel deep, bear fruit well 
The Friend of man desires. 



THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF BELIEF 
IN GOD. 



I announce for my subject this morning the 
practical value of the faith in God ; the practical 
value of the faith in God. The belief in God is 
assumed as a cardinal and all but universal faith of 
mankind. The speculative side of the question 
therefore I have no intention even of touching. 
Let that stand ; the practical aspect of the question 
is that which I ask you to consider. The idea of 
God fills the imagination of man. Vague, indefi- 
nite, unintelligible, for these reasons it stands for all 
that is great and glorious, all that is majestic and 
lovely. In the material world it describes force that 
is omnipotent, law that never changes, the primal 
and efficient cause, wisdom that guides without fal- 
tering, providence that watches, superintends, over- 
rules and binds all things together in a consistent 
order. In the moral world it stands for perfect 
justice, absolute truth, kindness that is without 
compromise, and love that cannot be grieved or 
prayed away. To the spiritual imagination it stands 



164 THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF BELIEF IN GOD. 

for the perfection of beauty, for whatever is excel- 
lent and adorable, the absolute, the infinite, the 
eternal ; for all that fascinates and overawes the 
soul of the world. Thus the conception gleams 
before the imagination of man, enchanting, enticing, 
commanding, swaying, whether he will or not. 

When we pass from the idea to the doctrine a 
lamentable change comes over the whole concep- 
tion. While the idea fills the imagination, the doc- 
trine empties it. The idea dwarfs intelligence, the 
doctrine affronts it. No theory or dogma of God 
does anything but outrage reason. In the material 
world it represents God not as law, but as the 
supreme violator of law, not as the pledge of con- 
stancy, but as the author of miracle, not as inex- 
haustible creative energy, but as an external will 
which exerts itself to baffle, defeat, suspend, over- 
rule and break up the systematic course and ten- 
dency of nature. In the moral world the doctrine 
represents God, not as the perfect equity, but as the 
absolute willfulness, not as a universal spirit of 
justice, but as a capricious ruler, who issues his indi- 
vidual decree, and pronounces, without reference to 
human standards of right ' and wrong, a final sen- 
tence, deciding what shall be and what shall not be. 
In the spiritual world, the world of feeling, the doc- 
trine represents God, not as the infinite majesty, but 
as the infinite will ; not as the serene creative wisdom, 



THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF BELIEF IN GOD. 165 

but as an individual who baffles emotion, hinders, 
teases and perplexes the intelligent worship of men ; 
not as the perfect beauty, but as a clouded, shaded 
and questionable loveliness, majestic, but awful, 
glorious but grim and mysterious ; a divided being, 
part of whom is in Heaven, part of whom is in Hell, 
whose attributes shade off into the demonic, shared 
by devils, as well as by angels ; a being to be 
crouched before, dreaded, shrunk from, and crawled 
towards on the knees. 

Such grotesque forms of thought furnish the occa- 
sion which atheism seizes for its deadliest assault. 
This is the provocative of atheism. For the atheist, 
■whatever be his particular theory, whatever his 
special pretext, fastens his fangs upon the dogma, 
not upon the idea ; upon the definition, not upon 
the vision. Atheism quarrels with men's thoughts 
of deity, not with their aspiration tozvard deity. 
There may be atheists, here and there, two or three 
in Christendom, who will not hear the name of God 
spoken, who discard the very imagination of God, 
who call themselves Nihilists j but of atheism as a 
rule it must be said that its hatred is of the dogma, 
not of the idea. Speak of law, harmony, order, 
tendency and effort towards progress in the world, 
atheism admits that. If atheism takes God out of 
Heaven, it puts him into the breast of man, or 
infuses him into the system of the universe. It 



1 66 THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF BELIEF IN GOD. 

does not abolish or eradicate Him. Lay aside the 
arbitrary limitations of the dogma, and atheism, the 
popular atheism, is disarmed. Thence it would 
seem that the point of real moment is practical, 
rather than speculative, for only as it is practical 
can atheism be considered dangerous. 

The practical value of this deathless belief, what 
then is it worth ? As a mere belief little or nothing. 
As a spiritual faith, as a belief of conscience and 
the heart, probably much, nay, I had almost said 
everything. To great multitudes of men it is price- 
less. Let us look at it in three aspects, first, as it 
concerns the individual life ; next, as it bears upon 
our political institutions, and third, as it affects our 
social state. 

What is the value of a belief in God as it affects 
individual character? This is the first point. The 
problem before us is this : how we shall keep char- 
acter uppermost ; how we shall maintain inviolate 
the integrity of the moral law ; how we shall be vir- 
tuous, patient, constant, sweet and good. This is 
the problem, and for its solution the idea of God has 
its value. As I look abroad upon the world, it 
seems to me that the chief thing needed is a fixed 
standard, a feeling, a conviction that truth is riveted 
to something permanent ; that goodness has a di- 
vine sanction ; that justice is no private notion, no 
whim born of temperament or circumstance ; no 



THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF BELIEF IN GOD. 1 67 

conceit; no result of shrewd calculation of chances; 
no product of balanced experiences ; but a primeval 
principle, a deathless reality, part and parcel of the 
organic structure of the moral world. It seems to 
me, living in a world like ours, a world of perplexity, 
distress, fear and intellectual bewilderment, that 
there is a necessity for men to hold fast a belief 
that justice is adamantine and eternal. Faith in 
God assists this endeavor. It is useful to remember 
how our forefathers spoke of conscience. It was to 
them as the voice of God in the soul. Duty was to 
them an expression of the will of God ; obligation 
was the binding law of God ; responsibility the di- 
rect command of God. They associated the senti- 
ments and virtues of personal character with the 
conception of an eternal law. But mark how men 
now speak of duty and responsibility and con- 
science ; notice how they put these great interests 
at the mercy of casuistry, of impulse or of passion. 
Within the year there has scarcely been an instance 
of personal disloyalty, domestic infidelity, public 
betrayal of trust, private dishonor or official disgrace, 
that has not been explained, apologized for, justified 
perhaps, pushed away into the dark, excused on 
some skillfully contrived legerdemain of logic, which 
was bent on concealment or evasion, craftily plied 
to make the worse appear the better reason. 

An enormous amount of subtlety is expended in 



168 THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF BELIEF IN GOD. 

law courts, public journals and private discussion, 
on efforts to resolve the substance of rectitude, 
honor, truth, into diverse forms of pardonable sel- 
fishness, natural mistake, constitutional weakness, 
and even laudable ambition. 

There are the doctrines that man is the creature of 
circumstance ; that man is the victim of inherited 
qualities ; the doctrine of happiness ; the doctrine of 
the divine legitimacy of passion, which, one and all 
tend to undermine and demoralize the personal 
character. To this result casuistry tends. The 
logical subtlety is in the pay of impulse, unreason 
and instinct. Its tendency is to pull down the pil- 
lars that support the moral faith of the world. It 
easily gets to be doubted under its cunning persua- 
sions, whether there be such a thing as moral obli- 
gation ; whether duty or right be more than solemn 
traditions ; whether a man may not lawfully consult 
what on the whole seems wisest, most profitable r 
most agreeable for himself. It is to be remarked 
that on this theory the lower man always takes the 
initiative, the man who is bent upon gratifying his 
desire, satisfying his rage to be rich, powerful, 
famous, sumptuous, feeding his appetite for some 
kind of selfish supremacy over his fellows. Casuistry 
works in the interest of discord, disintegration, 
moral inferiority. Hence the necessity of a fixed 
standard that cannot be pulled to pieces, or scorned 



THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF BELIEF IN GOD. 1 69 

or flouted ; a conviction, solid and deep, which 
idle skepticism shall not question, but which simple 
faith may fall back upon and obey. 

I do not say that at the bottom, to the fine calm 
philosophical view, the standard of duty is not 
purely rational. I do not challenge the utilitarian- 
ism of enlightened and earnest minds. I do not 
deny that at the last analysis reason is to deter- 
mine whether a thing be right or wrong, wisdom 
not tradition, prejudice or authority; still, living 
as we do in a passionate hot world, how many 
of us are calm, serene or philosophical ? how many 
go into the closet of meditation, bring the ques- 
tion before the reason, and solve the actual prob- 
lem of duty by the highest attainable wisdom ? 
It is impulse, passion, desire, the hot instinct of the 
moment that carries the multitude away, and the 
intellect, keen, questioning, sagacious is at the mercy 
of these persuasive sirens. To palter is to yield. 
Hence, for the stability of personal character, it is 
useful, to say the least, that the idea of duty should 
be perfectly simple, removed far from the seductive 
influences of casuistry, made identical with a sov- 
ereign will, with the absolute supreme will of the 
world, and as such meekly obeyed. 

Now look at the matter politically. What is the 
problem before us as Americans ? It is to establish 
a government upon firm foundations of human 



170 THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF BELIEF IN GOD, 

equity ; a purely republican government, a govern- 
ment popular, but stable. We, for the first time in 
history are trying this vast experiment, under diffi- 
culties which however they may have been insisted 
on, never yet have been fully estimated. In the face 
of intellectual, political, social influences we are 
summoned to conduct this delicate experiment. 
How are we to meet it ? 

It is a curious historical fact, that the great found- 
ers of democratic institutions have been Theists, be- 
lievers in God. I do not, and have not been able 
to recollect the name of a single great statesman, 
leader or founder, who was an atheist. Moses, the 
institutor of the Republic of Israel, a man only tradi- 
tions of whom have survived, but all the traditions 
of whom are fraught with majestic determination, 
and have left a mark of power on the destinies of a 
race, was simply and only a theist. The idea that 
sustained and inspired him was the idea of God. The 
belief in the immortality of the soul he would not 
use; nothing but the idea of God was precious. 
Relying on the potency of that idea, he pronounced 
the slaves free, raised woman to the level of man. 
He is the reputed emancipator of labor ; the foe to 
monopoly of the soil. He obliterated the common 
distinction between classes and ranks. He enjoined 
universal duties. His laws were severe against the 
infringement of personal rights. And his authority 



THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF BELIEF IN GOD. 171 

was the commission of Jehovah. Cromwell, one of 
the great names, perhaps the greatest name in Eng- 
lish history, a man even yet imperfectly understood, 
owed his power over himself and his generation to 
his faith in a real, immanent God, who had chosen 
him for his work. It was in the name of deity that 
he took his stand as a ruler, devoted himself as a 
reformer, ruled, instituted and builded. His rod, 
you say, was a rod of iron. He was a tremendous 
will, overbearing and cruel. Yes, that was because 
he defined God wrongly, but the idea of God as it 
came to his conscience, inflamed his heart, lifted up 
his soul, was full of invigoration and inspiration. 
His Calvinism overlaid his Theism, and made him 
a fanatic. Pure Theism would have made him sim- 
ply great. Washington, one of the greatest names 
in modern history, was purely, wholly a theist. 
Nominally he belonged to the Episcopal church. 
Apparently he was a " Christian/' but in his heart 
of hearts, at the core of his reason, as he lived, 
wrought, conquered, Washington had but one ar- 
ticle of faith, and that was faith in a Supreme will. 
He believed in the destiny of the American people, 
he believed in justice, he believed in law. So in- 
tensely, so profoundly did he cherish this belief, that 
he was able to take the ground — amazing at that era 
of the world, amazing now in fact, that an equal just- 
ice was to be extended to men of all nationalities, 



172 THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF BELIEF IN GOD. 

whatever their creeds, whether in Christendom or out 
of it, all local, occasional prejudices yielding to the 
universal principle of equity. The great Republic 
must abide by the Supreme law, must keep faith 
with the men of Tunis, or it abrogated its allegiance. 
Abraham Lincoln, the man of sorrows, owed his 
strength, his patience, his forbearance, his serenity 
to this broad faith. The heroic Mazzini, one of 
those sainted names that we can scarcely pronounce 
without tears, a man of utmost liberality of mind, 
protesting with all his might against every intel- 
lectual limitation, warned, prayed, begged his 
countrymen, not to lose their faith in the absolute 
and the eternal, for said he, If you lose that, you 
lose the guarantee of moral power. Emilio Cas- 
telar, the eloquent Spaniard, who in these later 
years has been promulgating his gospel of freedom 
and progress over Spain and Europe, cherished this 
idea first and foremost while many another idea 
was dismissed. He belonged to no church. He 
recited no creed. He made no confession. He re- 
peated no liturgy. He was purely and only a theist 
of the most ideal description, but a theist he was, 
so convinced, so glowing, so earnest that he could 
scarcely think of anything else when he was preach- 
ing his word. 

These certainly are significant facts. That no 
permanent state has ever been founded on repub- 



THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF BELIEF IN GOD. 1 73 

lican principles unless it was founded on some basis 
of Theism, is certainly remarkable. The explana- 
nation is at hand. Romanism has never been able 
to found a republic. It is the boast of modern 
Romanism that it can accommodate itself to any 
form of government. If Romanism should under- 
take to create a state on its peculiar principles, it 
would be a monarchy; it would be despotism. It 
can live in a republic because in a republic all re- 
ligions stand on a footing of equal rights ; all have 
the same opportunity for maintaining their institu- 
tions and promulgating their dogmas. But Ro- 
manism is incapable of founding a republic for the 
reason that it is, by its own constitution, a despot- 
ism. Its head claims to be higher than monarchs, 
a representative of the King of Kings. It is gov- 
erned by a hierarchy. It assumes to be sole recep- 
tacle of a divine revelation. It believes in absolute 
submission to authority. Out of the church there 
is no salvation, is the first article of its creed. No 
republic therefore is possible under Romanism. It 
is subversive of republican forms ; a perpetual source 
of danger. Protestantism never could found a re- 
public for this reason, that the cardinal idea of 
Protestantism is that none but the elect are saved. 
The saints are to rule the world, not the sinners, 
and the unbelievers are sinners. Protestantism 
therefore must admit as the cardinal part of its 



174 ™E PRACTICAL VALUE OF BELIEF IN GOD. 

creed that certain men are to be subject to certain 
other men. That there is no such thing as simple 
equality of rights or privileges under such a system 
is evident. If the Christ, who is all in all, is nestling 
in the heart of the creed, then those who do not 
accept the creed are subject, and can logically have 
no voice. 

Atheism, as commonly interpreted, cannot form 
a republic, for the reason that atheism throws men 
back upon individual determinations. A cardinal be- 
lief of the currently professed atheism, taking athe- 
ism literally at its word is, the survival of the fittest, the 
doctrine that the strong may rule the weak, the rich 
may own the poor, the wise may control the sim- 
ple, the crafty may make subjects of the helpless. 
Hence the doctrine of the survival of the fittest 
comes naturally to those who entertain a material- 
istic theory of the world. Natural force is the ob- 
ject of their adoration. 

And why does Theism suggest a republic ? Sim- 
ply because it grounds all rights in the absolute and 
supreme will, which need not be personal, but must 
be binding. All men, all women, all rational beings 
have on this principle the same rights, the same 
duties, because they have their roots in the same in- 
telligent reason, in the same moral justice. The 
root of citizenship is in all identical. The slave is 
free ; woman is raised to the same rational level 



THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF BELIEF IN GOD. 1 75 



with man ; the poor are fellow citizens of the rich ; 
the weak have the same rights with the strong, and 
are entitled to the same consideration. Therefore 
the postulate of Theism once understood and ac- 
cepted, we are compelled to lift up all who have 
been bowed down, to equalize political conditions, 
disregarding all diversities, and resting in pure hu- 
manity. The Hebrew State, inspired by a strong 
Theism, allowed to women a place that no modern 
state concedes. A law, promulgated in the name of 
the Lord, decreed that debts should be canceled 
after a certain lapse of time ; that slaves should be 
emancipated after so many years of service ; that 
the land should not be held by individual owners 
in perpetual possession. Attempts were made to 
smoothe away the mountains of inequality that time 
accumulates, and to restore the condition of brother- 
hood in the Lord, which characterizes Theism. How- 
ever much republican institutions may have differed 
here and there on incidental points, on certain car- 
dinal points they have always tended toward unity, 
the humane adjustment of civil conditions. 

Finally, I ask you to consider the practical value 
of belief in God in view of the requirements of 
human society. The problem before modern socie- 
ty is this, how to create a condition of things in 
which men and women, rational creatures, may live 
and work, suffer and enjoy, in peace, harmony and 



176 THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF BELIEF IN GOP, 

good will, with mutual sympathy and helpfulness ; 
not tearing each other to pieces, not crushing each 
other to the earth, but in mutual co-operation and 
compassion woven together by common bands of 
responsibility in a union of equity, if not of love. 
In a state of nature no such condition as this is 
found ; you do not come across it in the animal or 
insect world. There the struggle for existence goes 
ruthlessly on. There the rule is force without 
justice. An indiscriminate ravage characterizes the 
world of nature. As John Stuart Mill has so power- 
fully and eloquently set it forth in one of his essays, 
if we are to copy nature, we must discard what is 
most admirable in humanity. For " nature red in 
tooth and claw with ravine shrieks against the creed " 
of love. In the insect world, there is no delight of 
kindness or good will. Incessant' hunting, oppres- 
sion, enslavement, murder, is characteristic of its 
phenomena. Our inhumanities have their root 
there. The ants practice slavery and war, the 
strong ruling the weak, the lords disposing of the 
subjects. The weak lion yields up his blood to the 
powerful. When a herd of buffaloes rush wildly 
across the prairie, if one of them is wounded by a 
dart the rest turn upon him tear him to pieces, 
drink his blood and sweep on. When the pack 
of dogs tears across a meadow, if one of them 
limps the others stop just long enough to relieve 



THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF BELIEF IN GOD. 1 77 

themselves of the incumbrance. Then they go on. 

What is the history of the savage world ? The 
savage is a wolf. Barbarism, perpetual violence, 
craft, treachery, a flowing stream of blood, that nev- 
er dries up and never becomes shallow, a worship 
of brute power characterize the stages that precede 
civilization. Weakness may dig, slave, rot and grub 
in the ground ; the man of might rules ; man subjects 
woman ; the cruel oppress the gentle ; the high 
crush the low. There are those who congratulate 
themselves that a different state of things prevails 
in modern society. Does it ? Answer, you men 
who, day after day, go down into the lowest places 
of New York to earn money ; say, is the rule one of 
justice, equity, fraternity, consideration, kindness, 
love ? The rule of barbarism, the rule of the savage 
prevails. 

But this is wrong. We wish to abolish this. Our 
endeavor is or should be to build up a human socie- 
ty on principles of justice, mutual consideration, 
bearance and forbearance. We have the sentiment 
of it established in -our bosoms. In all good hearts 
there is a feeling that society ought to give expres- 
sion in laws and institutions to these sentiments. 
How shall this be accomplished ? Some help 
towards such a consummation may be derived, may 
it not, from the faith in a universal Father, whose 
care over all the world is absolute and unfailing. 



i;8 THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF BELIEF IN GOD. 

Behind the mask, the pageant and parade of pheno- 
mena, a deep-seated purpose, a direction and 
tendency to order, the heart of which is just, good, 
and even tender may be descried. All mankind are 
members of a family ; all are little children, stupid 
and blind, falling and stumbling, making their way 
painfully over ruins, towards something greater and 
more glorious than even imagination entertained. 
Given this idea that all are children of the same 
Father, that all have the same original parentage, 
that all share the same ultimate destiny, that all are 
set to work out issues that are hidden in a remote 
future, and the secret is furnished of the social 
mystery. Let this be granted; let this be heartily 
believed, and it will be simply an impossibility to 
grind humanity to the earth, to go on cheating and 
stealing, lying and subjugating. A sentiment of 
accountability, of mutual fealty and loyalty, of kind- 
ness, even of sacrifice will take possession of men, 
and society will gradually, around this great idea, 
form itself into the image of what society should be. 
Then, but not till then; for thus far the sentiment 
of brotherhood is associated with some form of the 
faith in God. 

Let not my argument be misconstrued ; I do not 
maintain or hold that things are to be believed sim- 
ply because they seem to work well, that any par- 
ticular belief may be entertained because we think 



THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF BELIEF IN GOD. I/O, 

it important to individuals or to society. That is 
exceedingly dangerous ground to take. A more 
dangerous position than that could not be assumed. 
It erects a fancied expediency into the 'criterion of 
truth. Any superstition, any monstrous piece of 
infatuation can justify itself on that ground. 
Romanism itself, the most pretentions of supersti- 
tions, relies on this argument. The Roman Church 
declares that its institutions are of the utmost im- 
portance to the welfare and stability of society, and 
on that ground demands belief in its dogma and sub- 
mission to its authority. 

Even were the fact as it asserts the conclusion 
would not follow, for there is a growing question of 
truth. If a doctrine be not true, no expediency will 
commend it. The expediency itself must be ques- 
tioned. It never can be wise to entertain lies. Dishon- 
esty is never the best policy. It is not an easy thing 
to tell what the practical effects of any theory may be : 
and they cannot on the whole be good, if the theory 
be false. The first question, therefore, is whether 
a doctrine be true ; whether it can maintain itself 
before the bar of reason. If the doctrine of Theism 
rationally explained, cannot do this, then dismiss it. 
Let us frankly and honorably let it go, let us profess 
that we are not theists ; that we do not believe in God. 
But things are very far indeed from having come to 
this pass. There are those who disbelieve in God, a 



l8o THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF BELIEF IN GOD. 

few, probably not more than a score or so of thinking 
people, who clearly and firmly without reservation, 
or evasion, discard the very substance of the idea. A 
disbelief in deity, intellectual, moral, spiritual, in 
deity of all kinds is rare. The substance of the be- 
lief though not the form of it remains, and it will re- 
main for many and many a generation yet, to glad- 
den and strengthen the world. Earnest men, the 
most earnest men are thus far the most earnest be- 
lievers. 

Yes, it is a lawful persuasion that though the idea 
may drop form after form, though every known 
definition of it may be discarded, though the dogma 
may be dismissed entirely, the substance of the 
faith, the heart, the core of it will remain, and will 
go on from strength to strength, from glory to glory. 

The practical value of the belief in God does not 
depend on the intellectual form which the belief 
may assume. The character of the influence ex- 
erted by it will be modified greatly by the fashion 
of the faith. The intense personal conviction of the 
Hebrew prophets, resting on the apprehension of an 
individual, instant, inspiring, controlling, ruling Je- 
hovah, imparted to them a peculiar moral assurance, 
directness, positiveness and force. The persuasion 
of the English Puritans, — the persuasion which 
possessed Cromwell, — that a personal, foreordaining 
will shaped the destinies of nations and individuals, 



THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF RELIEF IN GOD. I 8 I 

resulted in a fierce self-assertion which amounted to 
fanaticism, and issued in despotism and blood. As 
the faith becomes more sectional in its basis and 
more reasonable in its character, its influence be- 
comes less violent without becoming less invigorat- 
ing. Between Moses and Mazzini, between Crom- 
well and Castelar, the speculative distance is simply 
immeasurable. Moses would have called Mazzini 
an atheist, and Cromwell would have looked on 
Castelar as an attenuated visionary. In the eyes 
of Mazzini, Moses may have seemed a bigot ; in the 
judgment of Castelar, Cromwell may look like a 
fanatic. We know how the " God-intoxicated " 
Spinoza was regarded by the orthodox Theists of 
his race and time. How Herbert Spencer regards 
the anthropomorphic Theism of the modern English 
may be learned from his writings. Yet the heroic 
truthfulness of Spinoza is the confusion of those 
who would fain think Pantheism a system fatal to 
moral earnestness ; and the sweet purity and utter 
sincerity of Herbert Spencer are confessed by those 
who would be glad to be assured that a Theism 
so shadowy as his cannot be impressive. The fact 
is, that the faith in God is more nobly and beauti- 
fully operative in proportion as it is purged and 
purified of superstition. The most sublimated 
Theism is the most exalting to the conscience, the 
most enchanting to the heart. The less God stands 



182 THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF BELIEF IN GOD. 

for an individual, the more he is felt as a Being. 
The substance of the faith in him, as a practical 
power, consists in the gathering up, accumulating, 
condensing, solemnizing the sentiments and emo- 
tions which, in ordinary minds, float vague and aim- 
less, at the mercy of passion and caprice. However 
such a result may be secured, the ennobling effect 
follows. The " Religion of Humanity," which sub- 
stitutes the consolidated human race, the ''Grand 
Man," for deity, may secure the same end, and does 
secure it in the case of its most intelligent and 
earnest disciples, in the old world and the new. 
These, without exception, as I believe, are humble, 
consecrated men, who live for others, not for them- 
selves, subordinate the lower nature to the higher, 
are lovers of rational law and rational liberty, and 
are fellow workers at the task of redeeming society 
from its evils. They surpass in their allegiance to 
overruling principle, in singleness of devotion to 
humane ends, the consciencious professors of the 
popular faith. They, indeed, are the most con- 
secrated to universal objects of any in this gen- 
eration. 

Thus we see that the idea' is everything, the form 
comparatively unimportant. Evidences may be re- 
jected ; " demonstrations" may be set aside as 
worthless ; arguments may be answered ; concep- 
tions may fade away to shadows ; the belief in God 



THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF BELIEF IN GOD. 183 

may become attenuated to the last degree, so atten- 
uated that the "Awful Name" may be, as with 
some it is, merely a symbol of moral and spiritual 
entities, a " category of the ideal," as Renan calls 
it ; still, even then, it will carry with it associations 
of authority and sanctity ; even then it will lend 
power to the flickering will and steadiness to the 
fluttering aspirations of man. 



THE REAL GOD. 



My subject this morning is the real God, or in 
other words the reality of God, and my design is, if 
possible, to show in what sense God may be, to us, 
a reality, a real force or being, a "-living God." My 
object is not to discourse of the gods which are 
actual and real to men, for then I must speak of 
pleasure, of wealth and fame, of success and vic- 
tory, for these are the deities that men truly and 
daily worship. There is an everlasting difference 
between the deity that is professed, and the God 
that is adored, between the God that we write the 
name of in our creed, and the God that we worship 
in our hearts, between the God of theology and the 
God of life. Many a man's God is the very opposite 
of what he says it is. He will talk to you about his 
deity, will define it, and describe it in well considered 
terms, will tell you how it differs from the deity held 
by his neighbors ; but follow the course of the 
man's life, consult the drift of his motives and im. 



1 86 THE REAL GOD. 

pulses, see what it is that sways his desire, and you 
will find that it is some mean thing, some idle grov- 
eling passion that he would be shocked at if it was 
fairly presented to him. 

I spoke last Sunday of the practical value of a 
faith in God. Now we must never forget that no 
faith has a great practical value that is not in some 
sense real. The faith in God must be real, if it is to 
prevail. The popular faith is real. The mass of 
mankind truly believe in a living, operative, personal 
deity. They can not speak intelligently of him ; they 
can not define him ; they can not give reasons for the 
faith that is in them ; they can follow no line of 
argument in demonstration of his existence ; but 
yet there is an instinctive, awful feeling of his 
actual presence in the world, which controls, regu- 
lates, and predetermines human life. That this is 
so, need not be argued. It is too evident to be 
doubted. Go among simple men and women of all 
classes ; search the by-ways of life, and you will find 
a steadfast simplicity of goodness, sincerity, honesty, 
and veracity which can be accounted for not on the 
theory of intuitive knowledge, not on the theory of 
an instinctive faith in God, but as a sense, a feeling, 
an impression that outside of themselves, outside of 
the working world, there is a power which thinks, 
feels, purposes, and impels the world towards cer- 
tain ends of its own. God becomes unreal when 



THE REAL GOD. 1 87 

life ceases to be simple ; when men, engaged in 
business, completely absorbed in terrestial affairs, 
lose the sense of mystery that embosoms and exalts 
human life ; or, it may be, when they are engaged in 
intellectual pursuits, in the study of science, or liter- 
ature ; then, engrossed in themselves, interested in 
the working of their own minds, they forget the 
overarching reality that holds them and everything 
in its place. The unreality of God haunts the work- 
ing mind. You find it in cities, where men are 
busy with their own affairs. You do not find it in 
the country, where men are natural, thoughtless of 
themselves, and earnest in their service of others, 
where they lay aside their vanity and conceit. 

Men in all ages have insisted on having not a 
speculative, but a living God. The evidences of 
this are before us. Superstition, that grim, gaunt, 
awful thing that we speak of, sometimes in the lan- 
guage of horror, sometimes in terms of contempt, 
is, when duly examined, an effort to realize God, to 
make divine things palpable, tangible, to give them 
a local habitation and a name. Superstition takes 
its color from the mind that entertains it, from the 
fears or hopes, the hates or loves that see a horrible 
ugliness, or an immortal beauty in the immediate 
world of matter. Sometimes it is horrible, as in 
India, sometimes it is lovely, as in Greece, but, 
whether hideous or charming, it is an attempt to 



188 THE REAL GOD. 

detain the fugitive spirit of the law that bathes and 
governs the world. All men are superstitious. All 
people are superstitious, and they will be, to a cer- 
tain extent, to the end of time ; for superstition, 
shading off in infinite degrees as it does, reaches 
the lowest, but does not leave the highest intelligence. 

Idolatry is another effort to realize or make pal- 
pable divine powers ; to make God an actual, liv- 
ing being. The world is full of idols, horrible idols, 
some of them ghastly, stained with blood, but all 
in their way symbolical. The deities of Greece 
were idols, none the less for being models of beauty 
to all time. The image which one sets up in his 
mind when he undertakes to conceive of deity is an 
idol. It cannot be seen or touched, still it has its 
outline to the thought ; it is palpable to the intel- 
lectual apprehension. The real secret of idolatry 
is doubtless this, that the idol expresses what the 
unaided mind cannot grasp.* The idolator does not 
necessarily worship the image ; he adores the idea 
behind the image. At last, perhaps, he comes to wor- 
ship the image, but only at last. This he did in Pagan 
times. This he does in Christian times. The ordinary 
Catholic worships the picture of the Virgin as de- 
voutly as the ordinary Greek or Roman worshipped 
his block of stone. The intelligent Catholic sees 
the spirit behind the picture and bends before that. 

The Ark of the Covenant, which we read of in 



THE REAL GOD. 1 89 

the Old Testament, was a symbol intended to local- 
ize deity. If we know anything about the deity of 
the early Hebrews, and I confess we know very 
little, perhaps nothing at all, that conception, with- 
out regard to its date, was the purest, the noblest, 
the highest ideal on the whole that has ever been 
entertained by any considerable number of the 
human family, a highly intellectual conception of 
a deity without form or substance, having no abid- 
ing place, fashioned after the image of no created 
thing, whether orb of Heaven, or monster of the 
deep, beast, insect, man, creeping thing, or imagi- 
nary being, offspring of fear or fancy. But it has 
never been possible for a race of men for any length 
of time, to entertain an intellectual conception of 
deity. The Ark of the Covenant was an attempt 
as innocent as could be made to localize and domes- 
ticate the impalpable. It was a wooden box, of 
ordinary fashion and regular dimensions, furnished 
with conveniences for handling and carriage, all but 
devoid of ornament ; yet the people became accus- 
tomed to look upon it as a divine symbol. Where 
it was, there was Jehovah ; where it went, there 
Jehovah went. In the course of time, the lowest, 
the vulgarest superstition gathered upon it. To lose 
it was to lose the support of deity ; to possess it was 
to have the living deity in the midst of the people. 
Pass now to the Christian doctrine of Incarnation. 



190 THE REAL GOD. 

That again was an attempt to realize the God-head, 
to take the divine being oat of the vast bleak spaces 
of the heavens and make him a man. The Christ 
was " God with us," Emanuel ; he was the Word be- 
come a man, the whole of deity in the human form, 
walking about in the streets of cities, sitting at meat 
in human dwellings, talking with men and women 
as a friend, sympathizing with them in their sorrow 
curing their diseases, raising up their dead. This 
was the thought that gave vitality to the early 
church. Around this central conception the mod- 
ern church gathers. The jealousy that the trinita- 
rian even to-day has of the unitarian is founded 
upon this belief that the incarnation must contain 
the whole of God. The Christ must be verily God 
with us, not an archangel, not a spiritual creature of 
even the highest rank, but the infinite, the omni- 
present, the omniscient, the perfect wisdom and 
love, the Fullness, the All in All, — this, nothing else, 
and nothing less ; the trinitarian charges the unitarian 
with dividing the godhead, letting the divine essence 
depart and become once more a film in the air. 
There is no longer he says a real deity. There is no 
longer a living, working, operative being. The most 
popular of our living preachers said in substance : 
Christ is my God ; him I believe in, him I pray to ; 
the other God, the absolute, the ideal, the infinite is 
a mist in the air. 



THE REAL GOD. 191 

The Roman Catholic church did its best to realize 
God in the sacraments. The sacraments were chan- 
nels of grace by means of which the individual be- 
liever appropriated, by the touch, the taste, in drops 
of water, in the consecrated wafer, through the holy 
hands of the priest, the regenerating lord. The 
drops of water in baptism, were supposed to convey 
the protecting God. In confirmation, the rite by 
which the mortal connected himself with the church, 
was an electric bond by which helpless individuals 
became sharers in the life of the eternal. The 
church was the living, instituted, domesticated deity. 
In the communion the participant took the conse- 
crated wafer, which was regarded as the very body 
of Christ himself, and eating it appropriated the 
substantiated deity. In extreme unction, in abso- 
lution, deity was supposed to trickle from the finger 
ends of the priest. The words he spoke were the 
reasoning of the almighty ; the individual touched 
God. This was the mystery of the mass, how a 
breaden God could be a real one. To the mutitude 
no other was real ; the multitude could worship no 
deity they could not swallow. 

Turn to Protestantism ; the eternal God, the God 
of whom law, justice, truth, endless beauty are the 
suggestive names and the spiritual substance, is to 
Protestants nothing. He must be a raz/God, and to 
make God real there is the conceded necessity that 



I92 THE REAL GOD. 

He become tangible. The Protestant therefore clings 
to baptism, in the belief that the consecrated drops 
of water, convey to the individual the regenerating 
spirit of heaven. He prizes the communion bread 
and wine, the elements of the supper being conse- 
crated by the priest before eaten. The Bible to the 
Protestant is the portable God, a deity he can put 
in his pocket, lock up in his trunk, carry about with 
him on journeys, a divinity he can find lying on the 
centre table, can take up and appropriate by the eye 
as occasion may serve. You see him in the saloons 
of the steamboats; you' come upon him in the 
chamber of the hotel. Everywhere the effort is to 
place the idolized book, the printed, bound enleath- 
ered deity within the easy reach of men and women. 
That is the sanctifying thing, to read the Bible, to 
read it devotedly, to read it on the knees. That is 
sacramental. That is immediate communication 
with the all quickening love. 

The last made effort to realize deity is disclosed 
in the proposition to incorporate his name in the 
Constitution of the United States. There seems to 
be somewhere a notion that if we can but vote our- 
selves a God-fearing people we shall be so ; that if 
we can contrive to get written as a philactery on the 
forehead of our nationality, the ineffable name, an in- 
effable power will there upon take possession of us, 
sanctify us, sweeten us, and bear us on to national 



THE REAL GOD. I93 

victory. Such an idea could be entertained only by 
people who have for generations on generations 
been trying to incorporate God in some system or 
institution ; to make him local ; people who have 
believed in incarnating marble, canvass, paper ; in 
fetishes and idols ; in symbols and signs ; in figures 
of speech and gestures of the body. No intellec- 
tual people, no rational people would ever think of 
such a thing. Put the name of God into the Con- 
stitution ! Why Philip II, of Spain, did that, and 
was not saved thereby from the misfortune of being 
about the most despicably inhuman king that ever 
sat on a throne ; a tyrant and a bigot who ruined 
the noblest empire under the sun. Napoleon III 
did it, and what became of him and his dominion? 
Did the name of God deliver him from his spiritual 
foes? Pope Pius IX was eminent in this achiev- 
ment. To what end ! Either the divine spirit is 
in the breasts of the people, or it is not. If it is, 
then how idle to write an acknowledgment of it on 
a sheet of paper. If it is not, then how idle ! If the 
people are saved at all, it must be by faith in a real 
God not by profession of a nominal one. 

In the ancient city of Prague, in Bohemia, there 
is a venerable Jewish synagogue, its walls so thick 
with grime as to be absolutely black. The syna- 
gogue must be lighted in mid-day. A superstitious 
piety forbids its cleaning. There is a tradition that 



194 THE REAL GOD. 

somewhere on the walls, the precise spot was un- 
known, the name Jehovah is inscribed, so that, if 
the walls were cleaned it might be : rubbed, out. 
Would^ it not be better to clean the walls and realize 
purity e/ven .at the risk, of obliterating the word ? 
The word does not . cleanse the, building ; the dirt 
conceals the word. 

Let us turn from these artificial and unnatural 
devices for realizing God, these fantastical inven- 
tions, and consider how reasonable, thoughtful, 
earnest people may do it. I have mentioned these 
instances simply to illustrate the necessity that men 
are under, from the constitution of their minds, to 
make.God a real being, not an impalpable influence. 
Here, to begin with, is the outward world of nature, 
the material universe as we call it. How different 
the conception of nature is to-day, from what it was 
even a hundred years ago ! We have been educated 
to think . of nature as a crude, solid, substantial 
mass, which must be roughly dealt with ;. a stub 
born. obstacle to intelligence. We now know that 
it is in , ceaseless flux, irresistible, omnipresent, in 
perpetual action. We live in a living world. We 
speak now of force, of the correlation of forces. 
The doctrine amounts to this, that any force may 
be changed into another force ; that its disap- 
pearance in one shape is no evidence that it is 
abolished. It reappears in another. There is al- 



THE REAL GOD. 1 95 

ways the same amount of force in the universe. It 
is never diminished : it is never increased. What a 
conception does that give of a living God, a creative 
power, which is generating, regenerating, animating 
every moment of time ! protean in its shapes, single 
in its essence, dropping this form, assuming that, 
passing from shape to shape, always changing its 
semblance, its substance always identical with itself. 

Listening to Mr. Tyndall's lectures on light, we 
were obliged to confess that the world was a mys- 
tery of glory ; we felt that the sunbeam held us fast 
by a luminous chain. Imprisoned in the world? 
Imprisoned in liberty? Dungeoned in light? Such 
a thing is inconceivable. The universe emanci- 
pates. Nature is not an enemy but a friend ; not 
an oppressor, but an emancipator. If we study it, 
adjust ourselves to it, it will give us wings, not 
hang leaden clogs on our feet. The name on all 
lips at this moment, is the name of Edison, who is 
astonishing the world with his studies on the 
phenomena of sound. This discovery suggests to 
the dullest apprehension, that the universe is vocal, 
that these apparently fugitive waves of sound which 
cross and recross each other are under law, that 
they can be measured and regulated, combined; 
subjected to the orderly service of man. There is 
another revelation of a living presence in the world. 

Poets have always seen it. The immortal Shake- 



I96 THE REAL GOD. 

speare, in those tremendous lines which have been 
quoted many thousands of times and never cease to 
be impressive, betrays his suspicion that the mater- 
ial world is but a mask : 

" The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, 
The solemn temples, the great globe itself, 
Yea, all which it inherit shall dissolve, 
And, like this unsubstantial pageant faded, 
Leave not a rack behind." 

Goethe had a similar thought in his mind when he 
put into the mouth of his earth-spirit these resound- 
ing words : 

" Thus at the roaring loom of life I ply, 
And weave for God the garment thou see'st Him by." 

The thought is never absent from the mind of our 
own Emerson ; every one of his essays is full of it. 
He describes himself as watching the winter sun- 
rise; as making his way under a cloudy sky at 
evening through a lonely region, plashing over wet 
marshes, guided only by the light of stars ; as stand- 
ing, musing in the woods, solitary and silent, listen- 
ing to that voiceless presence that abides there, en- 
chanted always with an unspeakable delight. This 
idea saturates those immortal essays on Compen- 
sation, on the Spiritual Laws, which contain the 
deepest studies on this theme that are to be found 
in literature. The poet sees it, for it is the gift of the 
poet to look behind the semblance, to pluck off the 
mask, to discover the reality, the soul of things, the 
creative spirit behind the painted show. The poet 



THE REAL GOD. I97 

discerns the analogies that hold things together, 
traces cause and effect, divines how forces must ulti- 
mate in effects. But are we not all in some degree 
poets? Who has not felt, by the seaside, in the 
woods, by the grave of a child, musing by a peace- 
ful corpse, the mysterious sense of awe that pene- 
trates to the very roots of his being, making him 
feel how little he was, how majestic, how awful, 
how sweet and tender was the animating spirit of 
the world ! 

But more impressive still than the world of nature 
is the world of circumstance. We who live in cities 
know little of nature ; we see it through the crevices 
of the streets ; a constellation here and there, a bit 
of sunrise or sunset. But there is no day when every 
one of us is not living and working amid human con- 
ditions, tied up in a bundle of life with more or 
fewer human creatures. Stop, reflect a moment, 
and the closeness with which things are riveted to- 
gether, are constructed all of one piece, is astonish- 
ing. Affairs seem to go by luck, hazard, chance. 
The careless observer believes in accident. But the 
instant one stops and considers, he is convinced 
that there are no such things as luck, chance, 
hazard or accident ; that a supreme necessity works 
through the world of circumstance, knitting part to 
part, effect to cause, each effect being a cause in its 
turn, until the universe is resolved into a close net- 



I98 THE REAL GOD. 

work of laws. In fact if one thinks too much on this, 
the impression of destiny is overpowering ; he loses 
all sense of individual existence ; he becomes in his 
estimation nothing, a bit of straw before the wind,' 
the crest of a wave. His personality is drowned. It 
is the easiest thing in the world to become a fatalist, 
a pantheist, to become persuaded that there is 
nothing real but God. The ignorant, the supersti- 
tious, the credulous, who must have an interpreta- 
tion of every event, are perpetually committing the 
blunder of misplacing cause and effect, confound- 
ing their own fancies with the eternal laws. The 
Evangelical Protestant is convinced that if sickness 
befalls, or disease, or pestilence, it is because the 
people have neglected church going, have not lis- 
tened to sermons, have omitted to say their prayers 
or read their Bible as they should. Does a child 
die? The calamity befell because its mother loved 
the child too much, loved it more than she loved 
its Creator, who would have no divided loyalty. 
Does public distress prevail ? It is because the 
people have ceased to believe in the trinity. Ten- 
terden steeple is the cause of Goodwin sands. 

This is hopeless ; such an absolute want of logic, 
reason, common sense, such resolute and compla- 
cent putting the cart before the horse, setting cause 
and effect at opposite ends of the planet, is stupefy- 
ing. We must get away from this. It is simply the 



THE REAL GOD. 1 99 

recourse of desperation to keep God within some 
sort of bounds. We must learn to think, to be in- 
telligent, to reason, to put things together. Give us 
an understanding heart, should be, the prayer of 
every earnest and simple person. Here is the merit 
of science. The scientific method compels us to 
look at things as they are, to put causes and effects 
together where they belong, to classify phenomena, 
to disregard feelings, sentiments, prejudices, to 
classify things according to their constitution and 
relations. This is the immense service that science 
is rendering to this generation. It is compelling us 
to recognize the real, to leave out of sight the arti- 
ficial deity. Talk of science as being irreligious, 
atheistic! Science is creating a new idea of God. 
It is due to science that we have any conception at 
all of a living God. If we do not become atheists 
one of. these days under the maddening effect of 
Protestantism, it will be due to science, because it is 
disabusing us of hideous illusions that tease and 
embarrass us, and putting us in the way of knowing 
how to reason about the things we see. 

But then, if I may be allowed to make a sug- 
gestion, it seems to me that the scientific method 
.must be supplemented by the poetic. The scien- 
tific method is adapted to the understanding. It 
bids us consult visible facts, study palpable reali- 
ties. The culture of the imagination, of the power 



200 THE REAL GOD. 

to go behind facts, to discern laws, to appreciate 
principles, to get on the track of everlasting forces, 
is of equal value with knowledge ; I had almost 
said, is of supreme value. The poetic, sense — do 
we not need more of it ? Are we not too practical, 
too business-like? Would it not be of service to us 
to read oftener than we do in the great masters of 
imagination, who take us out of the small, low, irk- 
some conditions of life, and enable us to lose our- 
selves in the contemplation of a vast universe? 
The study of art in its highest relations, the study 
of poetry, the study of the stateliest literature, the 
reading intelligently of the sacred books of the soul, 
something of this is needed to give us a new sense 
of the reality of that spirit which is real, though we 
know it not. We cannot anticipate a return of the 
old-fashioned faith in God. No new definitions are 
to be expected. No new forms of statement are to 
be looked for. But we may anticipate a time when 
the real God shall be felt as he is not now ; shall be 
felt even by the thinkers, certainly by the earnest, 
intelligent, progressive minds of the race. When 
the name of God shall be identical with justice and 
equity, with truth, and freedom, and beauty, then 
will God become truly real once more; then He will 
become indwelling once more, a quickening motive, 
a keen inspiration to all greatness and goodness. 



THE POPULAR RELIGION. 



My subject this morning is not so much selected 
as assigned. I have not chosen it ; it has chosen 
me. It is not a subject that is pleasant to choose, 
but it is a subject that is most important to be dis- 
cussed. Part of the wisdom of the public teacher 
consists in his selection of live topics — topics, that 
is to say, that are active in the people's minds. I 
do not come here to answer my own questions, but 
to answer yours if I can find out what they are. 
And when it is evident that a question is active and 
burning in the public mind, teasing and agitating it, 
that is the question that the public teacher is called 
upon to deal with. The question touches then the 
connection between professed faith and actual life ; 
whether the religious beliefs of the community hold 
a vital connection with the practical daily life of 
the community — a vital question, — I had almost 
said, the only question there is. Does the senti- 
ment, the belief, the idea, the worship, the rever- 
ence, the adoration, the highest and sweetest desire 



202 THE POPULAR RELIGION. 

that is entertained by men and women act in a liv- 
ing and effective way upon the practical duties and 
the daily life of those very men and women, — does 
it or not? It is a matter of incidental importance 
what the belief is. The questions of papal infalli- 
bility and inspiration, the deity or humanity of 
Jesus, the reality or the dreaminess of the Christ — 
these are incidental and secondary. It is for the 
scholar, for the closet thinker, to deal with these 
questions. The question whether the belief we 
hold, such as it is, acts immediately upon our per- 
sonal, social, domestic, public life, our life as men 
of business, our life as politicians, our life as profes- 
sional men, our life as husbands and wives, sons, 
daughters, is a vital question. Because, after all, 
life demands the whole of every man and woman, 
not a mere fragment of him. We cannot go single- 
handed, half-minded or half-hearted into such con- 
flicts as we are daily put upon. Life is real, is 
terribly earnest for most of us. There is not a liv- 
ing man or woman who faces the situation as it is 
put before him who does not need not merely all 
the muscle and nerve, not simply all the brain, 
but every heart throb, every pulsation of conscience, 
every thrill of spiritual life that he is capable of. 
He must go with heart and will, with intelligence 
and soul into the high-ways and by-ways of exis- 
tence, or he cannot go successfully. 



THE POPULAR RELIGION. 



20J 



This, then, is the question : Is there, or is there 
not, a difference between the professed faith of the 
avowed community and its actual life — between 
the popular religion and popular duty? I do not 
raise the question. It is not a matter of specula- 
tion, of surmise, of skepticism ; it is not a question 
raised by the spirit of doubt or misgiving. It is a 
question raised by life itself. 

What is the most conspicuous, notorious, glaring 
and staggering fact that forces itself, and has of late 
years forced itself more and more upon the con- 
sideration of thoughtful men ? It is the losing of 
the sense of immediate accountability ; it is neglect 
of conscience ; betrayal of trust ; insensibility to the 
claims of our fellow-men upon us; a want of con- 
sciousness carried into these daily affairs of life 
with which we are dealing, everyone of us, in one 
form or another, all the time. Gigantic betrayals 
of trust, robberies, thieving, treacheries, fraud in all 
classes of the community, taint every department 
of Christendom, catholic, protestant, evangelical- 
protestant, liberal-protestant. 

What does this imply? It implies that the pop- 
ular religion, under whatever form professed, has 
lost its connection with life ; not necessarily that 
it is untrue ; not necessarily that it is discredited ; 
but the coupling is loosed, the connection is broken. 
The professed religion absorbs an amount of senti- 



204 THE' POPULAR RELIGION. 

ment, feeling, aspiration, that is taken away, is 
withdrawn from the working forces of society. It 
implies simply this, that men no longer feel the 
validity of the faith they profess. 

Two classes of people entertain in a very differ- 
ent manner these notorious facts that the news- 
papers are full of, that are the talk of the streets. 
One class consists of the extreme heretics, infidels, 
radical disbelievers in the popular religion. These 
put the extremest construction upon the facts that 
we all know. They say it is now a demonstrated 
thing that the popular religion is merely professed. 
It is a mask, a screen, an appearance, a simula- 
crum. It stands for nothing. It is a mythology — 
something that hangs in the air; something to be 
dreamed of, to be talked of on Sunday ; to be dis- 
cussed in sermon and tract ; but nothing to be 
believed in. Nay, say these men, more than this, 
it is a hypocrisy, a hollowness, a sham ; nay, fur 
ther, these men (for whom I am not speaking, but 
whose words I merely represent) these men say, 
how could anything better be expected ? Does not 
the professed religion of Christendom, by its funda- 
mental positions, undermine morality? Is it not 
essentially inimical to natural virtue ? Look at its 
dogma of depravity : consider its constant teaching 
respecting Heaven and Hell ; note its appeal to the 
lowest form of selfishness ; carry out to its con- 



THE POPULAR RELIGION. 205 

elusion the doctrine of faith in the Christ as a sub- 
stitute for personal goodness. Push to its logical 
result the dogma of supernatural grace, by which 
the priest in one church, the pastor in another, en- 
courages men to think that their natural actions can 
be passed over, or covered up ; that men have merit 
or demerit, not according to the qualities that 
actuate or animate them, but according to the qual- 
ities of the Christ, who becomes by faith a substi- 
tute for them. Is it possible, the objector says, that 
beliefs like these should be professed soberly, and 
honestly entertained for a thousand years, and that 
the virtue of the world should endure the strain? 
Is it possible that men should have faith in them- 
selves, faith in their own conscience, faith in the 
living power of the will, faith in the qualities that 
adorn, beautify and sustain their nature, faith in 
their capacity to make this world better, when all 
the time they are professing not to believe in them- 
selves at all ; when all the time they are disavowing 
their own virtue, flinging themselves at the feet of 
a redeemer, and trusting that he will save them 
from the consequences of their own deeds? Is it 
possible that such a religion as the popular religion 
of Christendom, which is based on these opinions, 
should do otherwise than lead to just such things 
as we see, weakness, imbecility, fraud, neglect of 
duty, contempt for moral obligation? 



206 THE POPULAR RELIGION. 

On the other hand, the advocates of the popular 
religion claim that there is no necessary connection 
between the practical iniquity of the followers of a 
faith and the validity of the faith itself. These, it 
is claimed, are exceptions ; these men who betray 
trusts have never felt the faith, have never been cor- 
dial believers; they are the exception that prove 
the rule. It is not true that the faith is hollow — a 
hypocrisy, and a sham. It is not true that it is 
invalidated by the trust and confidence of Christen- 
dom. In a thousand, ten thousand, nay, in a 
hundred thousand homes, in quiet places in the 
city, in all places out of the centres of the fretful 
and feverish life of modern times, we see men live 
by it sweet, noble, devoted, consecrated lives ; there 
are happy families, loyal husbands, tender wives, 
children carefully nurtured, homes where every duty 
of life is punctually observed. We see men living 
above the plane of their worldly existence, and liv- 
ing so by virtue of the power of this immortal 
faith. It is not true, therefore, that the faith has 
lost its consecrating force. 

Probably both of these representations are exag- 
gerated. Neither side is all true. Both overstate 
their case. For it is not true that the popular 
religion has faded away ; it is not true that the 
profession of it is hollow. It is not true that 
knowledge, which in some quarters has undermined, 



THE POPULAR RELIGION. 



20/ 



has prevailed widely enough to touch the heart 
It is true that, over wide reaches of Christendom, 
the holiest and sweetest things flow from the 
popular faith. 

Nor is it fair to judge the professed religion by 
its written creed. The articles of no creed fully 
represent the life of men and women. The last 
thing to be altered is the language of a theological 
creed. It will stand for ages upon ages unchanged. 
After the spirit of it, the thought in it is gone, it 
will be defended, while the underground life of those 
who profess it, follows other tracks and obeys other 
laws, and points to other issues. How few people 
there are to-day, even professed Christians, who 
believe literally, sincerely, honestly, in eternal dam- 
nation ! How few people cordially believe in 
predestination, in election, in the need of super- 
natural regeneration ! How many people really 
believe in substituted righteousness? How many 
people make faith in the Christ the real substitute 
for their personal integrity and virtue ? No, no, 
modern men and women will live according to mod- 
ern ideas ; will live on modern principles, will live 
for modern ends more or less. They will draw the 
inspiration for their life, not from the letter of their 
creed, but from the necessities of the daily situation, 
from the demands made on them by their daily con- 
tingencies. It is easy enough to quote the letter of 



20.8 THE POPULAR RELIGION. 

the Christian confession, Romanist or Protestant ; 
to draw inferences from it in regard to faith and 
character, and yet the daily virtue goes on. Men 
and women educate each other ; their worship is 
the worship of the heart — the natural heart — what- 
ever it may seem to be. 

But, on ihe other hand, is it true that the infi- 
delity of professing Christians casts no reflection 
upon their professed faith ? It is said, it was said 
the other day in a public paper, that one might as 
well declare that the infidelity of the individual 
lawyer reflects upon his profession of the law ; that 
the unworthiness of a particular physician casts 
reproach upon the medical profession ; that the in- 
stability of a merchant lays an imputation upon the 
honor of the whole mercantile class, as to maintain 
that the infidelity of a professed Christian dishonors 
Christianity. But, in all sincerity, does the parallel 
hold ? The profession of the law has not for its 
object the increase of virtue, or the development of 
nobleness in those who profess it. It does not aim 
at making high-toned and good men. The profes- 
sion of medicine has no eye whatever to the prac- 
tical training in the highest standard of moral life 
of those who profess it. Neither does commerce 
nor any industrial art aim at the training of char- 
acter. But religion does. The popular religion ad- 
dresses itself immediately to character. It has noth- 



THE POPULAR RELIGION. 209 

ing in view but that. It is a training school in char- 
acter. Its voice is addressed to the heart, the con- 
science, the soul. It implicates in every word the 
living sentiments by which men exist. It is nothing 
except an education in spiritual qualities. Its whole 
aim and purpose is not to make men lawyers, not 
to make men merchants or physicians, but to make 
persons; men worthy of their manhood, women 
worthy of their womanhood ; and if it fails in this, 
then it fails as much as the legal profession would 
if it ceased to educate lawyers, as much as the 
medical profession would fail if it ceased to educate 
physicians, as much as commercial life would should 
it cease to make merchants. If the popular religion 
fails in working out a noble popular life, then it 
falls short of the very needs of its existence, and 
these facts, which we all know are of universal im- 
port, prove that it does so fail. 

Let us consider this matter ; and in the first place 
I have to say that the popular religion never pre- 
tended to reconstruct society. It does not come 
within its province to reorganize social affairs. This 
is not its mission or intent ; it is not in its interior 
purpose ; it is foreign to its constitution. The re- 
ligion of Christendom never aimed at building up 
men and women after the fashion needed by society. 
It is a mediatorial system. Its whole object is, and 
from the beginning has been, to bring men into the 



2IO THE POPULAR RELIGION. 

• 4 kingdom of heaven." To obtain admission for 
believers into the kingdom of God — this has been 
its purpose, its avowed purpose from the first hour 
of its initiation until its last moment of history. I 
say this not in criticism of it, but in its vindication. 
What was the idea of Jesus? He announced it in 
the beginning, in language that bears its import 
on its face. It is no secret. It is written on every 
page of the New Testament : " The kingdom of 
heaven is at hand/' What was the kingdom of 
heaven? A new social state? a better society? a 
reign of justice, truth, brotherly kindness ? Was it 
more humane government, nobler laws, a wiser 
and richer philanthrophy ? No, the " kingdom of 
heaven" was announced as the reign of the Christ ; 
the supremacy of the Messiah — a new order of 
things entirely ; something wholly distinct from 
good laws, excellent government, nobleness of life. 
It was the coming in of a new creation intro- 
duced by miracle, established by supernatural de- 
monstrations of force. Jesus, so far as appears, 
never thought of stimulating the natural powers of 
men, of establishing the supremacy of truth, equity, 
kindness, brotherly love. Nothing was further from 
his aim than to make this world, — men and women 
living as they do in it, — to make this world of insti- 
tutions, social regulations and arrangements what 
philanthropists think it should be. To get people 



THE POPULAR RELIGION. 211 

out of this world, because this world was coming to 
an end, and to prepare them for admission into that 
kingdom which was not of this world, — that was his 
aim. The solitary condition of entrance into the 
new kingdom of heaven was faith in himself as the 
Christ, faith in the Messiah ; not justice, not kind- 
ness, not truth, not brotherly love, but faith in the 
Redeemer, accompanied by obedience to his require- 
ment. He preached virtue, and virtue of a very 
beautiful, tender and delicious description, but the 
virtues that he proclaimed were virtues necessary 
as conditions for entering into the " kingdom of 
God." Make yourself poor ; give away your money ; 
cease from all interest in mundane affairs ; do not 
be anxious to change your condition ; make no 
effort to become richer, greater, more potent in the 
world than you are. " Blessed are the meek, for 
they shall inherit the earth ;" " Blessed are they 
that mourn ;" " Blessed are the poor." In other 
words, the ethics of Jesus were the ethics of the 
millennium — ethics of a supernatural order — the 
ethics of the New Jerusalem. 

This was proclaimed at the very beginning. This 
fills with imagery the first chapters of Matthew. 
This was the herald cry of John the Baptist. The 
church has only been true to its tradition. The 
popular religion has simply followed the allotted 
path. To gain access to the kingdom of heaven, to 



212 THE POPULAR RELIGION. 

obtain the privileges of it, to sit on thrones there 
and wear crowns — that is the promise. The king- 
dom of heaven has not been described as a new 
social state, an improved human condition, but as a 
reign of love on the other side of the grave ; ac- 
cess to it has been offered to believers in the blood 
of the Christ ; and the virtues commended as need- 
ful to secure entrance into it have been the same 
old virtues — the Neiv Testament virtues, — not cour- 
age, manliness, perseverence, determination ; not a 
love of freedom, not a resolute mind to make the 
world better, but rather a passive, lowly, self-ab- 
juring disposition that would leave the world alto- 
gether, and postpone what this world can furnish 
for what the other world can bestow. 

This is the idea — the old idea. Of course, the 
popular religion preaches morality ; but as a sec- 
ondary, incidental thing, not as a primary thing ; 
not as a fundamental and everlasting thing. It in- 
culcates virtue ; but as of accessory worth as a con- 
dition of getting into the felicity beyond the grave 
— not the live, robust morality that men live who 
have to deal with life, in this feverish age of ours, 
but a morality that dispenses with that, because it 
is the condition of something else. Hence, I say 
that the popular religion, never having aimed to re- 
construct society, never having aimed to bring a 
kingdom of justice and truth on earth, in failing to 
do it only fails where it never tried. 



THE POPULAR RELIGION. 213 

Further, and as a consequence of this position, I 
venture seriously and gravely to affirm that the 
popular religion never has done any great things to 
regenerate actual society. I know this will be dis- 
puted. It is very commonly contended that the 
abolition of slavery, for instance, is due to Christ- 
ianity. But Christianity never had any prevailing 
influence in the abolition of slavery. As we read 
history by the new methods, carefully, we see that 
anti-slavery sentiment and purpose were due to 
very different causes. Slavery has existed in every 
Christian country from the beginning until now, 
and has been countenanced by the popular religion. 
Slavery was brought to this continent by a Roman 
Catholic priest. It is a matter of notoriety that 
the earliest abolitionists were orthodox Christians, 
members in the best standing of Evangelical 
churches. It was their prime hope, belief and trust, 
that from these churches they should gain power to 
carry out the cause they had undertaken. They 
were disappointed ; they were disappointed every 
time, and on every application ; and they were 
obliged to abandon the churches in despair, on 
making the discovery that the popular religion was 
not favorable to the abolition of slavery, or to any 
thing that drew attention away from the Savior. 

Those of us who have lived through a generation, 
can remember well the arguments that the popular 



214 THE POPULAR RELIGION. 

religion put forth north and south thirty years ago, 
in defense of the peculiar institution, as it was 
called, and all movements that were made against 
it. The simple truth is, that the anti-slavery senti- 
ment, along with the American doctrine of the 
worth of individual men and women, the sentiment 
of liberty and equality before the law, came not 
from the Christian religion, but from its opponents. 
The anti-slavery sentiment in this country came 
directly from Voltaire and Rousseau, from the 
French infidels of the last century, who prepared 
the way for the French revolution — from men 
whom the church denounced and denounces still. 
It was part of their creed. It was introduced into 
America by men who had learned it in Paris. And 
now, in our own generation, the spread of this 
sentiment is due to the spread of those kindred 
sentiments and ideas with which it was connected. 
What vital question of to-day does the popular 
religion undertake to answer? One of the vital 
questions of this generation of ours in all liberal 
communities, in America and in England, is the 
question whether woman, always held in subjection 
under the old regime, shall be classed as an indi- 
vidual, shall rank as a person, shall hold property, 
shall have a voice in making laws, shall have a share 
of control in education, shall, in a word, be a mind, 
stand as a conscience, exercise an independent and 



THE POPULAR RELIGION. 21 5 

effectual will in social affairs. This is one of the 
greatest, most difficult and most delicate questions 
of this generation — a question that all our skill, 
knowledge, sagacity is none too much to answer. 
Does the popular religion help us to answer it ? 
does it add any element to the discussion? does it 
lend a single argument? does it give a single im- 
pulse? No; not one. It has nothing to do with 
it. It does not suggest it. The question is out of its 
reach. The only influence the popular religion 
exerts, is to stop the discussion of the question. 
It appeals to the Bible — the old testament and the 
new testament ; it appeals to the words of the 
Christ, or it appeals to the usage of Christian tra- 
dition ; and it would suppress the whole discussion, 
because it is not the province, it has never been 
the province, of the popular religion to reorganize 
society, to say how men should live in their families 
or their shops ; how they should transact their busi- 
ness, conduct their government, make their laws. 
Its object is to get people into the " kingdom of 
heaven." For that purpose, faith in Christ is its 
sole, grand, controlling instrument. 

Take another question of the deepest, most vital 
practical concern in our communities — how far 
shall the liberty of the press be carried ? how far 
shall freedom of the mails be retained ? how far 
shall speech, writing, thinking, be free in our modern 



2l6 THE POPULAR RELIGION. 

communities? — a most difficult question — a new 
question — a question that only modern communities 
can fully entertain, because such communities alone 
know what it means. We believe in public educa- 
tion ; we believe in the validity of reason ; we believe 
that men must learn and that they can only learn 
through discussion ; and that truth must have a full, 
free, equal sway over the whole realm of mind. 
How far this freedom shall extend ; whether there 
shall be any limit to it, and, if any limit, what, — are 
open questions ; and not one of them is yet an- 
swered. The law with its finest finger is feeling its 
way into the complexities of the discussion. What 
has the popular religion to say about it ? Has it 
lent an argument, an appeal, an emotion, an influ- 
ence ? Not one. It has nothing to do with it ex- 
cept to try to stop it. What did the Roman Catho- 
lic church do for ages but suppress freedom of dis- 
cussion, freedom of speech, and as far as it could 
freedom of thought ? And to-day, in New York, 
the popular religion puts forth its hand, seizes, ar- 
rests, and holds for trial a worthy, sincere, faithful, 
devoted man, who is charged with having sent blas- 
phemous doctrines through the mail. Now it is not 
for me here and now to discuss the general question 
or to pronounce any opinion about it ; but it is 
for me to say, that the popular religion gives no 
help whatever to the discussion, that, as far as the 



THE POPULAR RELIGION. 



217 



papular religion intervenes at all, it is to stop the 
discussion, and that we protest against. One thing, 
at least, we may affirm, that no sect, no number of 
sects has any authority, or right, or title, to say that 
its opinion and no other shall be taught, shall be 
promulgated, shall be disseminated through the 
mails. 

Take another question, one of the most vital, one 
of the most practical, one upon which, as some 
think, the very future of our republican institution 
depends — the organization of charity — the regula- 
tion of the constitution of things as established be- 
tween the rich and the poor. Already there are signs 
that the desperate pauperism that is crushing old 
Europe, that is embarrassing England, is getting a 
footing and start in this country. Already it appears 
that poverty is becoming an institution, that people 
are growing up into the profession of beggary ; that 
men and women think it is their title to live on the 
earnings of others; an evil this that goes to the 
very heart of our practical independence, because, 
if our modern society means anything, it means 
that every man shall earn his own bread by the 
sweat of his own brow ; if he is poor, must bear his 
poverty or work his way out of it ; but pauperism, 
beggary — that should be completely foreign to re- 
publican state. The organization of charity, the 
organization of philanthrophy, the question how we 



218 THE POPULAR RELIGION. 

are to check and prevent further necessity — this is 
perhaps the gravest practical question that is at pres- 
ent flung down to us to answer. This is one of the 
biting bitter problems of the hour. Science, politi- 
cal economy, knowledge of human nature, knowl- 
edge of history, kindness, the sense of justice and 
truth, mutual helpfulness — all these elements come 
in to help us to solve it. Does the popular religion 
do so ? Does it add an element to the discussion ? 
Does it make a way for us to do the needful work 
of the hour? Not at all. It appeals to the New 
Testament direction to give alms to the poor; it 
encourages wide and loose distribution of wealth — 
that is it encourages the fostering of poverty. It 
still, as far as it is believed in, sanctifies poverty ; it 
gives countenance to the institution of pauperism. 
Whenever an attempt is made to combine the chari- 
table associations of a great city, so that they shall 
understand each other, shall work in harmony, shall 
throw all their strength in the same direction, that 
fraud may be detected, and unworthy objects of 
charity may be found out and exposed, it fails; be- 
cause the popular religion is interested in keeping 
alive its own sectarian organizations. Each church 
has a charitable society as a tender to itself. Con- 
sequently it is impossible, owing to mutual jeal- 
ousies, to combine the whole charitable sentiment 
of the community to meet in a scientific spirit the 



THE POPULAR RELIGION. 219 

problem that is right before it. These are not 
speculations, are not surmises or guesses; they are 
not accusations. They are simply facts. 

We know too that the popular religion is an 
effect as well as a cause. For it is not altogether 
true to say that Christianity has done so much for 
the world ; another question is raised, What has 
the world done for Christianity ? We see that re- 
ligion takes its color from the people that profess 
it. It is one thing in the East, and another thing 
in the West. Catholicism never could have thriven 
out of Italy. German Catholicism is a very differ- 
ent thing. Eastern Christianity is one thing, En- 
glish Christianity is another, and American Chris- 
tianity is a third. It has as many systems as there 
are nations. 

I heard a liberal preacher, not very long ago, eu- 
logizing Christianity and ascribing to it every good 
thing under the sun, affirming- that we owed to it 
all we had — popular freedom, liberty of conscience, 
noble sentiments, domestic purity; aye, he con- 
tended in his intemperate zeal, that but for Chris- 
tianity, we would have never had a posr office! 
There is another side to the discussion. The fact 
is that the popular religion is itself an effect- — a 
creation of time. Christianity has come to be what 
it is through the active forces of mankind, who 
have made it to be what it is, modified it, shaped 



220 THE POPULAR RELIGION. 

it, had this taken away, that built up. We should 
never have had an altar, or a priesthood, or a con- 
fessional, or a shrine, or a censer cup, if Christianity 
had not had its dominion in Italy, where all those 
things were already established. 

I am not arraigning the religion as a religion. 
I say nothing against its creed or its institutions. I 
can do justice to its glorious past : I know what it 
has done in its place and in its day; in those dark, 
bitter days when it stood for unity and peace ; when 
its high dignitaries faced brutal emperors, and faced 
them down. I love to think what it is doing to-day 
in thousands and thousands of homes to educate 
people in truthfulness, in peacefulness of life, in 
love for one another; and I love to think what it 
might do if its enormous wealth, its power, its 
prestige, its magnificence, its popularity, were all 
brought to bear upon these problems of the hour. 
Will it ever be — can it ever be? The traditions of 
the faith are against it. The practice of nearly two 
thousand years is against it ; the habits wrought into 
the minds and consciences of millions and millions 
of worshippers are against it. For an answ r er to 
these questions, for a solution of these problems, for 
the rectifying of these disorders under which we 
suffer, we appeal to science, to knowledge, to study, 
to an acquaintance' with the facts of life, not to the 
popular religion which aims at getting men into a 
kingdom of God on the other side of the grave. 



THE POPULAR RELIGION. 22 1 

Things on this side of the grave are of some inter- 
est. Whether we shall hold together, and go on 
and build ourselves up, and make our crooked paths 
straight and our rough places plain, whether the 
curse of intemperance, and the curse of poverty and 
the curse of fraud shall be diminished — these are 
interests, and speaking for one, I care infinitely 
more about questions like these than I do for what 
is to become of me when this short life is ended. 
Am I a man ? Am I doing a man's work ? Am I 
meeting the call that is made upon me? Frederick 
W. Robertson, one of the noblest of the English 
broad churchmen, stated at the close of one of his 
powerful sermons: " Let what will become of the 
dogmas of Christianity ; let men believe or disbe- 
lieve ; honor, justice, truth, vitality, stand on their 
own merit, and always will hold their own ; virtue 
will always be honorable." Aye, true; but how 
long will this steadfast, practical principle be re- 
spectable while they are made conditional upon 
faith in Christ, upon belief in the Christian dogma? 
They will fade; they will disappear; they will be- 
come impotent. We must rest, then, upon other 
foundations, upon their ability to meet the instant 
necessity. The sanction of these immortal virtues 
of truth and justice lie all about us. They are not 
in Trinity; they are not in the deity of Christ ; they 
are not in the inspiration of the Bible ; they are in 



222 THE POPULAR RELIGION. 

necessity, in a necessity that the world should go 
on, that the human race should hold together, that 
society should justify itself. They lie in the simple 
fact that we, here, thousands, yes, millions of peo- 
ple, are working out for ourselves the practical 
problems how to live above the level of the brutes, 
how to vindicate manhood and womanhood. 

Let us study the facts that lie about us ; let us 
study the relations with which we are entwined, and 
we shall find then, that every great virtue, every 
grand principle, every immortal responsibility, is 
based upon a rock of ages that lies underneath our 
feet. No belief, no dogma, no worship of an ideal 
Christ will start into life the dead sentiment of 
honor and truth within us, if we do not feel the 
force that our daily and hourly duty should have 
upon our immediate conscience. 



THE NEW SONG. 



I am to speak this morning on the new song of 
Christmas. I call it a new song ; but it is the old 
song with a new burden — the old song of peace and 
joy, of hope and expectation for the future. It is 
a common impression, I suppose, that Christmas is 
a Christian festival. It is an unfortunate mistake 
Christianity adopted the festival because it could 
not do otherwise ; it was too dear to the heart of 
man to be abandoned ; but so far from inventing it, 
Christianity has done what it could to take out the 
original spirit of natural joyousness, and substitute 
a spiritual emotion. The attempt has not been suc- 
cessful. In modern Protestant countries the Christ- 
mas has become to some degree humanized. In 
Germany the Divine Child is human, and in cele- 
brating the birth of Jesus the light is reflected back 
upon the children of the family. It is the child's 
day, and every child is beautified and glorified on 
account of the beauty and glory of the Son of 



224 THE NEW SONG. 

Mary. The lesson of Christmas is not that our 
children are less worthy, but more worthy. 

And there is this other significant implication in 
the festival. When a person has been really great 
and has acted with conspicuous nobility and beauty, 
it is presumed that all things above and below are 
in sympathy with him. " Fear God," says Emer- 
son, " and where you go men shall think they walk 
in hallowed cathedrals." Love God and men shall 
love you. The greatest will bow their heads to 
virtue, the least will bless it, the rich will think 
themselves honored by its regard, the poor will be 
touched and softened by its benignant presence. 
All things conspire together in honoring sweetness 
of heart, dignity of conscience, purity of soul. 
There is no great, there is no little, there is no high, 
no low, no rich, no poor, when virtue is in the 
ascendant. 

The belief in miracles, in the communication of 
the supernatural with the world, is a homely confes- 
sion of this faith, in all men, — that they who will 
observe the laws of virtue may expect divine sym- 
pathy. The axes of the earth will bend to do them 
honor, and the eternal laws will come creeping up 
and will drop their potencies at their feet. Hence 
in the Christmas season, as men look back and see 
people glorifying and celebrating the birth of some 
great deliverer, they recognize the fact that they are 



THE NEW SONG. 225 

celebrating the birth of Purity, Truth and Good- 
ness, the power of Justice to bring harmony among 
all conditions of men. This beautiful idea Christen- 
dom should be proud to inherit. 

The humanity, too, it inherits. One custom on 
Christmas is to give bread to the hungry, send tur- 
keys to the newsboys, and spread tables overflow- 
ing and over-burdened with plenty for those who 
have nothing to eat, in confession of that universal 
bounty which we all alike share. But this confes- 
sion, as has been often said, was made by the 
ancients before Christ was born. 

We read with new interest in this view, the story 
of Christ in the Manger, — the legend of the little 
child born in the night, born in winter ; of the great 
kings coming from afar to bring their tribute of 
gold, frankincense and myrrh, to lay at his feet ; of 
the angels making the night air vocal with their 
songs ; of the shepherds following the star to the 
place where he lay ; of the cattle mute but sympa- 
thetic, standing by. It is a symbol of humanity — it 
expresses the deep, original, cardinal sympathy that 
exists among all creatures. 

This little child, who was he ? The son of a 
peasant woman and a carpenter of Nazareth, born 
in a stable, because there was no room in the inn, 
where only those lodged who could pay for their 
accommodation. And yet the angels celebrate his 



226 THE NEW SONG. 

birth with song ; he is one with the kings who travel 
from afar; he is of one blood with the shepherds 
who look in at the cracks of the door. How beau- 
tiful the symbol, the perfect unity of Heaven and 
Earth ! the voices on the ground mingle with the 
voices of the skies. 

We read the life of Jesus. That life is in the main 
mythical, largely made up of fable and tradition. 
It is impossible to know how many of the things he 
is reported to have said are authentic ; how hany 
of the deeds he is reported to have done, were act- 
ually performed by him. As the story of his birth 
is a legend, so he himself is one of those vast and 
beautiful legends that gladden the heart. The nar- 
ratives describe a being of perfect humanity. In 
this great person we do not find a trace of jealousy, 
envy, hatred, fear, alienation, antipathy toward any 
created thing. Wherever he sees poverty, he re- 
lieves it ; he sits by the beds' of the sick; he quick- 
ens into life the forms of the dying. He has no fear 
of treading in strange paths. The one hated person 
in his time was the Samaritan. Words could not 
tell the depth of scorn and aversion that the ordi- 
nary Jew felt toward the Samaritan. He was an 
outcast ; the child of Abraham would not eat with 
him, would not greet him in the streets, Yet, over 
and over again Jesus is introduced as praising the 
Samaritan. His greatest and deepest word " Verily 



THE NEW SONG. 227 

I say unto you, the hour cometh, and now is, when 
neither in this mountain nor yet in Jerusalem, men 
shall worship the Father; God is Spirit, and they 
that worship him must worship him in spirit and in 
truth," this profoundest saying in the New Testa- 
ment was, according to the tradition, spoken to a 
woman, and a woman of Samaria. There is with 
him no recognition of the distinction of persons. 
With equal ease and readiness he accepts the in- 
vitation of the Pharisee to dine, and invites himself 
to dine with the scorned publican. Nay, more 
loyally human still, as he sits at the rich man's 
board, he addresses compassionate words to a 
woman of the town, who creeps in and bathes his 
gracious feet with her tears. We find him going 
beyond the boundaries of the sacred country dis- 
pensing benign teaching among Greeks and Gen- 
tiles. 

Scrutinize that life, — you do no not find an in- 
stance that displays anything but purest loving- 
kindness to all the world. He has no hatred, no 
contempt. The Pharisees drag before him a poor 
woman caught in the act of sin, fling her to the 
ground before him, — and with their fingers dripping 
scorn pointing at her, they challenge his judgment. 
A wave of the hand remands them to the closets of 
their own consciences — " Let him that is without 
sin among you cast at her the first stone," — then 



228 THE NEW SONG. 

reaching down, the same hand lifts up _ the poor 
woman and dismisses her. Not a look in the eye 
not a tone in the voice, not a word from the mouth 
betrays a lurking scorn or horror. A perfect hu- 
manity is here ; ideal, too pure and sweet to be im- 
itated ; a vision, but what a vision ! Ah, if Christ- 
endom could only dream that dream once a year 1 
If but once a year, when celebrating the birth of 
Jesus, Christendom could remember what that birth 
symbolized, what that Jesus was, and, besides send- 
ing turkeys to the newsboys, and spreading tables 
for the poor and famishing, would consent to lay by 
all prejudice, social, theologic, religious ! If Jew 
and Christian, Gentile, Mohammedan and Turk 
would say: Now, to-day at least we are one ; to-day 
we all celebrate the birth of the Divine child, who 
to us was Christian, to you was Greek, to you was 
Buddhist, — what a Christmas festival would be 
there ! But no ! it cannot be ; nothing so great and 
glorious as that has ever been known in Christen- 
dom, or ever will be. It was the custom in the 
Roman Empire under one of the earliest Christian 
Emperors, for the poor to be visited, the sick to be 
relieved, the sorrowful to be consoled on Christmas 
day. Charlemagne, Emperor of Germany, com- 
manded that on that day prisoners should be re- 
leased. Tamurlane, the mighty conqueror and 
Prince of the East, ceased to persecute and kill the 



THE NEW SONG. 229 

Turks on Christmas day. These are beautiful 
omens, but such emblems do but serve to make 
more sullen and gloomy the path which Christ- 
endom has trodden. There is no hope that Christ- 
endom will ever justify in its observance the splen- 
did promise of its author's birth. 

Now what shall we do? Shall the Christmas 
festival be allowed to go unappreciated and unim- 
proved ? Shall we have no more a Christmas in 
which we can delight ? Shall we make the season 
over to children ? Shall we be content to perpetu- 
ate the old Pagan practice of making gifts to the 
young, decorating trees, and opening the way for a 
passing gleam of sunlight into the heart of winter, 
for those who have scarcely learned yet what winter 
means ? Is the lesson of Christmas lost for those 
who are no longer young ; for those who are 
immersed in the struggle of life; for those whose 
winter lasts not for a season only but for the greater 
part of the year; for those who literally dwell in 
darkness and cold ; for those whose hope is faint, 
whose memory is bitter? Let us trust that the 
time is coming when the Christmas festival shall 
mean something for men and women as well as for 
boys and girls. 

But what shall this be? The old Pagan festival 
is not what we want. This is calculated to please 
the children. The essence of the Pagan festival 



23O THE NEW SONG. 

was gratitude to nature, subservience to nature, sub- 
mission to nature. The ancient people appreciated 
the physical blessings of the sunlight. The sun- 
beam was their regenerator, their benefactor and 
redeemer. Living, as the multitude have always 
lived, in cold and darkness, their lives unprivileged 
and bitter, hedged about by limitations manifold, 
they hung upon the coming of the sun, as the 
wretched, sick and afflicted, to whom existence is a 
nightmare, long for the morning. Nature worship 
was at the bottom of all their sacred observances. 
They adored the Sun god under the name of 
Apollo or Hercules. Their deities manifested 
themselves in the elemental forces which controlled 
their destinies. Each natural phenomenon ex- 
pressed a divinity; the wind, the rain, the vapor, 
the river, the brooklet, the standing pool, silence, 
the echo. The soul of the universe took on in- 
numerable shapes. The tree contained a deity ; the 
bush, the shrubbery, herbage and flowers, had their 
animating spirits. Nature was peopled with gods 
and goddesses, beneficent or malevolent. Altars 
were built, fires were kindled ; sacrifices were 
brought ; hymns were sung ; peans were chanted ; 
prayers were made, partly to give voice to the sen- 
timent of gratitude, partly with a purpose to pro- 
pitiate the powers that lurked about, visible or in- 
visible, to bless or to curse mankind. There was 



THE NEW SONG. 23 1 

no science for the multitude, no art, no literature, 
no consolation of mind or sympathy. 

Hopeless and helpless, common men lived upon 
the herbage, and counted as for life on the spring- 
ing of the grass. The beam of light was therefore 
their divinity. The chemistry of the sunbeam is 
understood now as it was not then; mankind's 
priceless indebtedness to the sunbeam is acknowl- 
edged as it never was before; the annual return 
of the orb of to-day from the grave of winter is 
celebrated with more intelligent joy. Still, we are 
something more than nature worshippers. 

Neither, on the other hand, can we accept the 
Christian idea founded on the hatred of nature^ 
Christianity has for its fundamental idea an abhor- 
rence of nature, a loathing of everything natural* 
Nature in its view, was the source of evil. Nature 
held the hidden curse. Nature was a thing to be 
abhorred, to be repudiated and abominated. The 
birth of the Christ was not therefore to the Christ- 
ian the birth of the Sun God. It was the birth of 
the Redeemer coming to rescue a race bound in sin 
and doomed to everlasting destruction. The re- 
ligion thus animated, became grim, gloomy, awful 
and ascetic. It discouraged pleasure ; it discoun- 
tenanced joy ; it frowned on mirth. Light and 
color, gayety and song were alien to its spirit. The 
lesson of Christmas to the Christian was not a les- 



232 THE NEW SONG. 

son of natural joy, or of joy at all, except. as he be- 
lieved that he was totally depraved, and that the 
deliverer had come to rescue him from the conse- 
quences of his natural sinfulness. 

Now the modern man cannot believe that he is 
by nature a child of wrath. He cannot believe that 
the human race is lost. The sense of sin has de- 
parted from his religion. He does not believe in 
sin. He does not count himself a miserable sinner. 
He believes in the power of thought, in reason and 
conscience ; in the strength of human hearts to sub- 
due the natural forces. He believes that man is 
his own providence, his own deliverer and his own 
regenerator. He does not look for a special re- 
deemer. To him the story of the birth of the Christ 
is, legendary, a myth. He does not believe that 
such a person as the Christian's Christ ever lived. 
To him the Christian mythology is like any other; 
rich and beautiful it may be, but a mytholgy still, 
created by the imagination and fancy of men, not 
belonging to the domain of sober history, or accu- 
rate science. Therefore the Christmas of the Christ- 
ian he cannot accept. 

What then ? is the Christmas festival nothing to 
us? Cannot we share the joy, the glorious antici- 
pation of the better future for society which is im- 
plied in the symbolical narrative of the birth of the 
divine child ? To me the symbol describes the birth 



THE NEW SONG. 233 

of the human, — the birth of the true humanity, — the 
birth of the spirit which makes man to be indeed 
man, and woman to be indeed woman. I would 
use here no vague phrases. Let me tell you briefly 
and plainly what is in my thought. 

By the birth of the Christ, I see presented in al- 
legory the birth of a living faith in us and for all, 
that mind has the primacy over matter and over all 
that is material and animal ; the birth of a full, 
vigorous, active faith in positive knowledge, in 
science, in the power and potency of thought ; the 
birth of a fresh and living conviction that the human 
reason, heaven-descended, coming fairly incarnated 
in men, sits on the throne, wields the sceptre and 
brings kings and 'peasants alike kneeling to its feet. 
The human reason is the first quality that distin- 
guishes man, the human creature, from the animal 
beneath him, from the minerals and vegetables that 
lie at the foundation of the material earth. 

By the human, again, I mean sympathy, the feel- 
ing in the heart of man's relations to his fellow-men, 
— the sentiment of kindness, the feeling of charity 
and good will, the conviction that each may do 
something more than he or she knows, to make the 
world better, to establish a semblance of brother- 
hood, to build up society in equity. 

By the human, once more, I mean faith in the 
future, the persuasion that the world is to become 



234 THE NEW SONG. 

better, that a happier experience is approaching for 
mankind, that evils are to be restrained, that ignor- 
iance is to be diminished, that contentment is to be 
increased. This element of hopefulness, this senti- 
ment of prophecy, this deep ineradicable prescience 
that to-morrow is to be better than to-day, that each 
year as it succeeds the years gone by, will bring 
some new acquisition of light and power, — this is to 
me the grandest quality in our human nature; with- 
out this we are not men or women. The man, the 
woman who does not believe in abetter time coming 
through the prevalence of the finest human quali- 
ties, misses not the charm merely, not the ecstacy, 
the glory and excellence of life, but even more 
fatally the quality of endeavor, the patience, the 
£ourage, that make his life best worth having ; for 
Jife without this is hardly worth living to the manly 
soul. To make it truly worth living, one must pro- 
pose something, must feel that there is an encourag- 
ing conflict going on in which he can take a part ; this 
makes anybody's life worth living. There may be 
a dull, inert, passive kind of enjoyment without this 
thrill of expectation ; but there can be no robust 
enduring satisfaction without it. These three ele- 
ments, faith in the primacy of mind, faith in the 
power of kindness, faith in the laws of justice, which 
are always regenerating, and which will make the 
future happier than to-day, constitute the greatness 



THE NEW SONG. 235 

of human nature, and these the symbol of the birth 
of the Christ indicates. 

Let me illustrate in one or two respects the 
supremacy of the human over the inhuman. 
See it in the first place in regard to nature, 
the outward world, the material universe. The Pa- 
gans worshipped it with awful joy. The Christians 
abhorred it, laid it under the bann. What do we 
do? We use it. The human asserts its supremacy 
over nature. We are not afraid of the telluric 
forces. We are their masters not their slaves. We 
are certain they will serve, that they confess duty, 
and will aid valor. We do not worship nature. 
Neither do we detest it or scorn it. It is a store- 
house of beauty, a magazine of use, a deep reservoir 
full of saving powers. In it is the promise and 
potency of all benefit for mankind ; we go to it in hu- 
mility and say, " give us what you have ; yield us 
up your secret, unfold your mystery. We are 
feeble, you have power. We need tools, you pos- 
sess them. Give us health for disease, safeguards 
for our defencelessness." 

The chemist extracts from it the secret of its 
solid substances ; the physicist weighs the impon- 
derable elements of light, heat, electricity. The 
naturalist studies plants and flowers. The physio- 
logist searches into the processes of life. 

Thus we make nature our servant. She must 



236 THE NEW SONG. 

drive our factories, carry our letters, toil at our 
drudgery, and leave man free to do the nobler work 
that becomes him. She purges our minds of the 
fumes and fogs of ignorance, corrects our art y 
straightens our conduct, rectifies our philosophy, 
reforms our creeds. She abolishes the superstitions 
which ignorance of her engendered. Her terrors 
disappear ; her mysteries facinate. Her combina- 
tions and resources are a ceaseless charm. Her 
volcanoes and floods, her terrible upheavals aud 
catastrophes we are coming to understand and to 
profit by, compelling her to yield antidotes to her 
poisons, and deliverance from her plagues. She re- 
sponds to human prayers against herself. She 
cradles the Christ. Thus we have done with the 
worship of nature, and are justifying the Christian 
legend by making nature wait on the human child. 
To say that nature, brute nature, nature as she 
is, illustrates the eternal laws is to speak rashly. 
We have learned the necessity of going behind the 
scenes. 

The natural religion which undertakes to show 
the kindness, wisdom and goodness of the Creator 
from the superficial arrangements of the visible 
universe, is out of date. Science refutes it. We 
have got beyond that. For against every form of 
beauty is overset some fashion of ugliness; against 
every spot of light, a patch of darkness ; against 



THE NEW SONG. 237 

every agency that helps man on, an obstacle that 
drags man down ; against every apparent blessing, 
a seeming curse. Creation is at war with itself, and 
waits groaning for the manifestation of the sons of 
God. The brute animals fatten on the blood of 
their kind. We sigh to put an end to this. We 
long to create harmony in nature. The sentiments 
of justice, of law, of goodness, are in the human 
heart, not in the material world without us, and 
we would compel the material world to take on the 
likeness of the human nature. We have but begun 
this, yet, but we have made the beginning. Mod- 
ern science aims at this, and in time will accomplish 
it, thus making articulate one note of the angel's 
song. 

We boast to-day and rightly, of the power of 
light over darkness. Is darkness then something 
positive, or is it something negative? Darkness, 
we have discovered, is the absence of light. There 
is no such existence as night. Day alone is posi- 
tive. Yet darkness, though negative, has very 
positive effects ; for darkness stands for supersti- 
tion, credulity, crime. In the dark the beasts of 
the forest come forth. In the dark the imagina- 
tion peoples the world with apparitions and spec- 
tres. These are the ghosts that walk abroad to 
affright mankind. Try to imagine the state of the 
world in those primeval times when people had no 



238 THE NEW SONG. 

means of lighting their dwellings except the sun- 
beam. How awful their winter ! Was not dark- 
ness a positive power when it crushed the very 
minds of men, and compelled them to cower before 
the idle dreams and superstitions of their own 
minds? What a magical effect is produced in a 
dark chamber by merely bringing in a candle! 
The darkness is dispelled — all darkness ; the night- 
mare is at an end ; the spectres disappear. The 
solid terror is seen to be ail apparition — a ghost. 

Can one born blind ever be fully educated ? 
Taught many things, he can be certainly ; but how 
many things cart be taught only by the help of the 
eye ! And if the eye be extinguished, dense dark- 
ness settles upon whole regions of mind. 

Is ignorance a negative thing? Ignorance is ab- 
sence of knowledge. Yes, but what an absence is 
the absence of knowledge ! All the enormities of 
society came from the absence of knowledge. Why 
do men hate each other? Why these wars and 
oppressions? Why the attempts on the part of 
one nation to pull another nation down ? Why 
these mutual envies and jealousies ? Why this 
conflict in the name of interests ? Why the quar- 
rels between religions ? Why the antipathies be- 
tween churches? Why the rival missionary. enter- 
prises, the restless efforts on the part of one church 
to put another church to shame ? Why the battles 



THE NEW SONG. 239 

of the creeds ? Why the dividing lines between 
sects ? Simply because they do not understand 
each other; simply because the light has neve^ 
come to their ignorance, because they have never 
been disenchanted of prejudice. 

The delicious thing to my mind is, the humaniz- 
ing quality of knowledge ; its power to overthrow 
barriers, and enable sundered people to find each 
other out ; its efficacy in furthering mutual under- 
standing and encouraging sympathy. There is an 
interesting study, not born in this generation, not 
new to-day, though even at present limited to a 
few scholars and independent thinkers, — the study 
of comparative religions, the study, that is, of all the 
religions of the world from a scientific point o,f 
view, as products of the human mind. Able mep 
gather together the sacred books of the race, read 
them with open, sympathetic minds, and note, nqt 
their unlikeness, but their likeness. The very idea 
is regenerating. The birth of it though barely 
announced, is the birth of a true son of man. A 
new song is sung, angelic in power and sweetness. 
The thought, that religions constitute a brother- 
hood ; that religions are human ; that faiths are 
substantially in unison, creations of the human 
mind, making attempt to voice thought and emo- 
tion, as well as conditions permitted ; that no one 
church has a right to domineer over the rest ; th^t 



240 THE NEW SONG. 

no one system of belief or of reputed revelation 
has supremacy over another, — establish that con- 
ception and at once the war of ages ceases. The 
odium tJicologicum is at an end. There is no more 
of that bitter and blood-thirsty hate which has 
characterized religious differences from the be^in- 
ning of time. The reign of dogmatism is over. 
The creeds are disinfected. The demons are exor- 
cised. The men who abhorred one another em- 
brace. The churches that stood aloof, armed from 
head to foot, hold out hands of welcome to adverse 
sects. The priests no longer offer sacrifices to jeal- 
ous gods. Missionaries carry intelligence, unity 
and the grace of the sympathetic spirit, explaining, 
not converting, obliterating, not deepening the 
lines of division between creeds and races. Civil- 
ization, not barbarism, accompanies their steps. 
At once the consecrated sceptre falls from the 
hands -of priestcraft; the tiara is taken from the 
head of papal and protestant dignitaries, and a 
sweet feeling of sympathy reigns over the religious 
world from end to end. The bibles instead of 
frowning upon each other, exchange their best wis- 
dom. Pious men delight to see how many bibles 
echo the same words ; how from the consenting 
conscience of the race, in all lands and generations, 
comes the solemn attestation of grand principles. 
In this one illustration we have exhibited the truth 



THE NEW SOXG. 24 1 

which no generation has been favored with as ours 
has been, of the supremacy of the human element 
over the inhuman in its worst aspects. When Prof. 
Huxley gave his course of lectures in New York on 
evolution, he made a simple but far reaching state- 
ment. He said in substance : ' I have no theory to 
defend ; I have no doctrine to propound ; no scheme 
of the universe to establish. I am not pledged to 
any interpretation of scripture. I study facts as 
they appear in my department, and come under 
my examination. Do you study the facts in your 
departments, and you, again, in yours. Then when 
we have all the facts there are, we can begin to 
form some idea of the creation.' The sentiment 
that animated these words spoken by a man of 
science, with modest courage, heralds a new future 
to the whole world of knowledge. Precious as 
knowledge is in itself, precious as facts are, such 
language communicates a spirit of love for the 
truth, of emancipation from creed and dogma, that 
is infinitely more precious, a spirit of pure aspiration, 
of simple honesty, of humility, trust and patience, 
which makes a new era in the development of man- 
kind. Just as soon as the philosophical world, the 
religious world, the scientific world, shall find itself 
in sympathy with such sentiments as these, from that 
moment a child will be born over whose birth the 
angels may well sing their happiest songs. 






242 THE NEW SONG. 

One point more, the supremacy of the human 
over evil. This too was intimated in the symbol of 
the birth of Christ ; it was the burden of the song 
which the angels sang, " peace on earth, good will to 
men." Peace on earth ? good will to men? How 
enchanting the prophecy ! how lovely the vision ! 
how transporting the dream ! No more alienations 
or antipathies, no more conflict of fancied interest, 
ho more insane struggle of man with man, to secure 
by force what cooperation will surely bring. War is 
the evil of evils — the accumulation of evil ; mention 
war and you mention every suffering, pain, affliction, 
fevery calamity, to which the human race is exposed ; 
poverty, misery, widowhood, orphanage, untimely 
'cleath, devastation of fields, breaking up of homes, 
'cessation of laws, suspension of culture, the destruc- 
tion of the forces that keep up human society, the 
demoralization, in short, of society, the overthrow of 
^the pillars on which it rests ; the arrest of the 
Civilizing movements on which the progress of man- 
kind is conditioned. We speak of what war has 
<elone, alas what has it not undone ? The angels sing 
'peace on earth. Has the church that calls itself by 
the. name of the child — has the religion which boasts 
<6f him as its founder abolished war? Has it done 
anything to abolish it ? Can it be proved that any 
■great war has been prevented by the power of its 
ministrations? Possibly, this may have been; and 



THE NEW SONG. 243 

yet, for every war that this religion, so-called, of 
Christ has prevented, it has started at least one. The 
wars of the Church, the bloodiest, longest, most ter- 
rible that have been waged, were in defense of dog- 
matism. They have been wars of creed against creed, 
of church against church, wars to suppress thought, 
to maintain institutions that ought to perish ; wars 
to check the growing spirit of liberty in man, wars 
against heresy, wars against faith. It has been 
asserted and by responsible men that Christianity 
has made more wars than it has stopped or alleviated. 
It has done so simply because it has not represented 
the human, but the inhuman element of narrowness 
and exclusiveness. 

We look for the time when war shall cease. 
Through what agencies? Through preaching, sac- 
rifice, ecclesiastical dominion ? Not so, but through 
the prevalence of the human element of justice. 
How was it with the great war lately raging in the 
East? Before it could be declared, what counsels, 
advices, efforts on the part of people in Europe 
to prevent it, to effect an arrangement to make 
the outbreak unnecessary ! and every step of the 
conflict itself was watched by the keen eye of 
the statesmen of Europe who were determined to do 
what they could to prevent its running beyond their 
control and so increasing the power of barbarism. 
But in what spirit were these efforts at prevention 



244 the new song. 

made? Not in the spirit of brotherly love, of sym- 
pathy, compassion or pity, not in the assumption that 
all were subjects of a common salvation, all believers- 
in the same truth, but that states were interlinked, 
that interests were coordinated, that nations were 
grouped together by human ties of responsibility, 
that all great interests were universal, and all 
real interests were for peace. There is a conviction 
that, if society is to go steadily forward, if the poor 
are to be richer, the weak stronger, if the oppressed 
and defenseless are to come in for their share of 
human rights, we must have peace, we must break 
up the prejudices that are born of ignorance and 
fear, of the inhumanity that has characterized every 
government and every religion that has been estab- 
lished. To be sure, we have not advanced very far. 
The true faith is a little child in the manger still, 
— not a man yet— but when this hope of the human, 
this conviction of man's worth and dignity, this 
sense of the supremacy of mind, this faith in kind- 
ness, this glorious expectation of. a better day com- 
ing, when this shall become matured, wide-spread, 
universal, then what may we not see ? 

Three or four months ago I listened to a clergyman 
of an advanced Christian denomination, and heard 
him speak in a tone of despondency about the ten- 
dency of things in America. It seemed to him that 
we were going downward so fast that in fifty years 



THE NEW SONG. 245 

we should be behind Europe ; all the maladies and 
crimes of Europe, were, he said, thronging upon us, 
and would crush us, if we did not mend our ways, 
go back to old prejudices, revive old laws ! I do not 
believe it ; if I see anything distinctly, I see that the 
element of humanity, respect for intelligence, rev- 
erence for knowledge, belief in the power of sympa- 
thy and kindness, faith in the power of human 
achievement is growing, is spreading, Help it to 
spread and we shall find that there is not an evil 
which we cannot with effort remove, not a prejudice 
that we cannot overcome without a sacrifice, not a 
mischief that we cannot avert- It is so ; and all 
that is necessary is that we should feel that the 
human nature in us is coming to its rights. When 
the day shall come, the angels will sing their ancient 
song once more, but they will sing it in our hearts, 
and they will not only make the promise of peace 
and good will but they will fulfill it. 

Thus the old song is susceptible of new modula- 
tions, which make it acceptable to modern ears. 
The Christmas festival becomes human, and in be- 
coming human becomes universal. All can join in the 
celebration ; all can share the joy. The world-wide 
character of the symbol is restored. The observance 
is accommodated to the humanity from whose heart 
it sprung. The Christian has a Christmas quite in 
the spirit of the sweetest tradition of his history. 



246 THE NEW SONG. 

The Jew can share it, for the Messiah sprung from 
his stock. The Rationalist can find pleasure in it, 
for the dogma having been converted into a symbol 
as it originally was, having become imaginative and 
poetic, answers to his aspiration and sentiment. The 
Mohammedan is* not excluded, for his faith is an 
outgrowth from the Christian. Even the far off 
Oriental is at home with the family of worshippers, 
for the lovely symbol that associates and unites them 
was his before it was theirs. 

What a Christmas it would be if all the faiths 
were to celebrate in concert the ancient festival in 
this high spirit ! Were the teachers of each to 
illustrate and enforce the lesson of unity, peace, and 
concord, sounding, each in his own tongue, the note 
that swells the mighty symphony of human belief ! 
Were the effort made but once a year, to exhibit 
the unisons of the soul so grandly that the memory 
of the discords should be forgotten and an impulse 
to cordial brotherhood be communicated from end 
to end of the adoring Earth ! 

What a Christmas, if, but once a year, the growth 
of the young child could be traced in new institu- 
tions perpetrating the purer conscience of the race, 
in laws reflecting a more humane sentiment, in cus- 
toms better according with an enlightened feeling of 
brotherly love, in domestic, civil and social arrange- 



THE NEW SONG. 247 

ments that correspond to the poetic anticipation of 
the Nativity ! 

Not yet, at this age of the world, is the divine 
child born, except in symbol and dream. Not yet 
is he born in the heart of his own worshippers. No 
human organization serves yet for his perfect cradle. 
Only here and there the materials for his manger 
are collected in some association that pities the 
outcast, honors labor, rescues brute animals from 
cruelty, or seeks to level the irregularities of human 
conditions. But the idea is abroad : the sentiment 
is awakened: the desire is kindled, and will bring 
about its own fulfillment. The' unisons of faith 
have been sounded. The unisons of charity will be 
voiced ere long. Leigh Hunt, standing with his 
friend Shelley in the cathedral at Pisa, remarked, 
as the organ was playing, and the crowds were 
kneeling on the floor, that a truly divine religion 
might yet be established, if charity were really 
made the principle of it, instead of faith. His friend 
murmured " AMEN." 



VISIONS OF THE FUTURE. 



" Hope springs eternal in the human breast : 
Man never is but always to be blessed." 

These words of Alexander Pope express in no 
exaggerated terms the universality of expectation in 
the heart of mankind. Men are always looking for- 
ward towards something better. There never has 
been an age, there never has been a people that 
has not hoped, dreamed, anticipated, built castles 
in the air, cherished visions of the happier time 
coming ; an unreasonable hope, for the most part, 
born of imagination and fancy, a dream, an illusion, 
yet so vivid, so intense, so enchanting, that it has 
been mighty enough to deaden the present sense of 
pain, loss, deprivation, and to keep men looking 
forward even when experience seemed dragging 
them backward. The hope naturally took color 
from the dispositions of those who entertained it. 
It was the reflection, the inverted image, of their 
doubt, or fear, or distress. The men of the tropics 



250 VISIONS OF THE FUTURE. 

have visions of a time when there shall be no more 
heat. The Esquimaux at the north pole have 
visions of a time when there shall be no more cold. 
Always the vision reflects what is wished for, the 
intensity of desire, not the immediate condition 
which is experienced. 

It still, however, remains a question what basis 
this expectation had, for some basis it must have 
had. Even the air-plant does not live entirely on 
air. The orchids attach themselves to something. 
The nightingale is but an embodied song, yet the 
little gray bird perches upon a bough, branch, twig. 
All vision of the future has a ground in the nature 
of man. The ground is always the present distress, 
the sense of discomfort, pain, uneasiness. The 
present does not stand in contrast with the past, for 
as a rule, men know but little of the past ; formerly 
even less than now ; in uninstructed lands far less 
than in the centres of knowledge. Mankind has a 
feeble memory. We look back but a short dis- 
tance, and everything except what is pleasing is 
quickly obliterated. We do not long remember 
suffering, disappointment, anguish, or pain. These 
soon disappear, leaving no trace, but the bright oc- 
currences, the happy hours, the joyous coincidences 
— these remain. The period of childhood seems, in 
retrospect, to have been happy, because it is the 
most remote. The ancients put their Eden in the 



VISIONS OF THE FUTURE. 25 1 

past, because they knew nothing about it. After a 
journey in foreign lands the traveler remembers 
the glorious sights he has seen, the merry days he 
has passed, the charming acquaintances he has 
made. The weariness, the fatigue, the pain, the 
emptiness, this is forgotten. Had men known 
about the past they would not have imagined their 
paradise there. As they have learned more about 
it they have removed the golden age and set it fur- 
ther forward, until at last they come to dream of it 
as not being in the past at all, but in a future more 
or less remote. Now it hovers as a vision before 
only the most audacious hopes of the most resolute 
believer. Out of the distress of the present, for 
that is real, comes the expectation of the future. 
Who is happy? Who has all that he wants ? Who 
can put his hand on his breast and say, he is ready 
to die, having fully lived ? The majority of man- 
kind have not lived at all, have no adequate con- 
ception of what life means. Ignorant, superstitious, 
fearful, oppressed with care and labor, their fore- 
heads bowed down to the earth, they have literally 
no conception either of the possibilities within 
themselves, the possibilities of society, or the possi- 
bilities of the great universe, tingling with life, that 
blazes and rolls around them. Hence the univer- 
sality of expectation. If the world were happy, it 
would not desire a bliss beyond. If men were satis- 



252 VISIONS OF THE FUTURE. 

fied they would not hunger and thirst for unattained 
good. It has been remarked by one of the sages of 
this generation, that in proportion as men become 
reconciled to their condition, the longing after a bet- 
ter condition beyond, will fade away, until at last it 
disappears. Not the happy, but the unhappy, he 
thinks, anticipate a paradise beyond the grave. 
And who are the happy ? The few. The unhappy 
are the many. Consequently the many hope, long, 
expect. 

The Prophetic Conference that met two months 
ago in our city, gave expression to one aspect of 
the hope that animates Christendom ; to but one 
aspect, and that the smallest, narrowest, least popu- 
lar and human of all. For not only were there 
present no disbelievers in the particular anticipa- 
tion cherished by the callers of the meeting, none 
who criticised, doubted, rejected ; not only were the 
Jews unrepresented, who always as a race, have en- 
tertained the hope of the Messiah's coming, and 
from whom this particular anticipation came ; but 
even those who most ardently look forward to the 
coming of the Lord were absent. The second ad- 
ventists who make a point of foretelling the times 
and seasons, were not present, even by invitation. 
Their prevision was too literal. There was no 
Swedenborgian present, for the reason that the 
Swedenborgian's expectation of the future is too 



VISIONS OF THE FUTURE. 253 

spiritual. None but those who cherished a single 
phase of the hope of Christendom were asked or 
welcomed ; and yet even this narrow interpretation 
of the Christian hope drew crowds, interested thou- 
sands, and was a matter of comment in the daily 
press. 

This hope of the second coming of the Christ is 
by no means, to the multitude of believers, the 
idle, vaporous, visionary, fantastical thing that it 
is to me and to some of you. It is a very real, 
vital, earnest anticipation. The root of it is found 
in the history of Israel ; the expectation grew out 
of the distress, the misery, the persecution to which 
Israel was subjected. Through the chastening of 
their most disconsolate experience, the Hebrews 
were brought to anticipate the coming of a Mes- 
siah, under whose sceptre Israel should be raised to 
supremacy as a nation, the temple rebuilt, Jeru- 
selem made the central city of the world ; the elect 
people being summoned from all parts of the earth 
to the new kingdom of God. This was the expec- 
tation, as far as I read, in the time of Jesus. This, 
as far as I can learn, was the expectation of the 
disciples of Jesus ; this was, it appears, the expecta- 
tion of the master, himself. There is every reason, 
in my judgment, to think, that Jesus anticipated 
his visible and personal return as the Messiah. In 
no respect, as far as I can see, did his expectation 



254 VISIONS OF THE FUTURE. 

differ from that of his nation. Such continued to 
be the expectation of the age that succeeded him. 
The apostle Paul, some of whose authentic writings 
have been preserved, diverted the thoughts of chris- 
tian believers from the original, material form of 
the prejudice. His idea was that the Christ was 
coming personally, visibly, in power and splendor, 
but in a " spiritual " body, etherial, floating, not 
composed of earthly stuff ; was coming not to the 
earth, but to the clouds. The believers in him 
instead of receiving him in Jerusalem, were to be 
themselves transfigured, " changed " into impalpa- 
ble shapes, and lifted up to meet their Lord in the 
air. The dead in Christ were to rise first ; after- 
ward they who were still alive were to be trans- 
formed, their mortal flesh being laid aside, and in 
place thereof spiritual garments of light substituted, 
which being lighter than the atmosphere, would 
enable them to float upward from the ground. 
Being collected in mid air. by the Saviour, they 
were to be straightway transported into the realm 
of light. In the meantime, the old world was to 
go on in its bad, godless way, until the end, when 
the final day of judgment would settle all accounts. 
This strange hope continued, we know not how 
long. In time it disappeared. History disap- 
pointed, baulked, disproved it, changed it into 
illusion, consigned it to the realm of dream. For 



VISIONS OF THE FUTURE. 255 

the Messiah did not come. He never came either 
in mortal form or in the spiritual body. He never 
appeared visibly on the earth or in the clouds. 
No awful trumpet sounded ; no waving pinions of 
angelic hosts disturbed the air. The old world 
rolled on its course without jar or pause ; believers 
and unbelievers died, were buried, mouldered away, 
were dissipated in elemental gases, were forgotten. 

Then a change came over the old expectation. 
The greatest father of the church, Origen, started 
what is called the allegorical theory of interpreta- 
tion, the application whereof to this ancient belief 
was direct. On this theory, men instead of expect- 
ing the personal, visible return of the Christ, were 
to look for his coming in the prevalence of his 
truth, in the spirit of his gospel, in the knowledge 
of his salvation. The language of the New Testa- 
ment, it was maintained, is figurative language, not 
to be literally understood. Believers are not to 
take it verbally ; are not to believe that a trumpet 
will sound, so that ears can hear it, that forms will 
appear which eyes can behold. The description is 
intended for the mind's eye. The words are in im- 
port spiritual, intellectual, symbolical. 

This view was too fine to be entertained by any 
but ^intellectual people. It remained, and still re- 
mains, the view of a comparatively small and select 
class in Christendom. The multitude insist on be- 



256 VISIONS OF THE FUTURE. 

lieving then as now that the very Christ must come 
in person, in visible and palpable shape. At the 
expiration of the first thousand years of christian 
history, this hope shook the heart of Europe with 
mighty forebodings. Men fell on their knees in 
terror. The christian world writhed in fear. It 
was thought that the world was then to come to 
an end. The thousand years of grace announced 
by the seer of the Apocalypse had expired, and 
men listened with intent ear for the awful sound, 
which was to awake the dead and call the living 
away from earth. The century passed by ; still the 
inexorable laws of nature held on their even course. 
Prophets resumed their practice then of counting 
the chances, scrutinizing the figures, calculating the 
times and seasons. Scholars in different parts of 
the world, endowed with curious learning, an- 
nounced on the authority of scripture that on such 
and such a day the Lord would come. He never 
came. He never will come. 

Still the hope is entertained, and it now falls into 
two great divisions ; on the one side are those who 
believe that the Christ will come before the mil- 
lennium, to establish it ; on the other side are those 
who believed that he will come after the millen- 
nium, to consummate it. The opinion of the. first 
named was represented in the recent conference. 
The idea simply and literally stated is that enter- 



VISIONS OF THE FUTURE. 257 

tained by St. Paul, that the Christ is to come in 
personal and visible form ; that the believers will 
be caught up in the air, the dead rising first, the 
living joining them, and both together carried into 
the realm of light. Then the world will be left to 
its ignorance, its turpitude, vice and sin for an in- 
definite period, running down, of course, all the 
time. Finally will come the judgment and the 
closing up of all terrestrial affairs. Those who 
believe that Christ is to come after the millennium 
entertain a more rational, certainly a more spiritual 
view, for their idea is that the truth must prevail 
first ; that only when the world has been converted 
as far as it can be to the Christian religion, will the 
Lord come to seal and sanctify, to judge and per- 
fect his work. 

Do you ask me which of these ideas I entertain ? 
Neither. What I think of them both ? I think 
they are both foolish, wild, utterly extravagant, 
baseless and fantastical. 

The common element in this christian hope, how- 
ever entertained, is that the Christ is to come 
personally and visibly at some time. Let us, while 
pronouncing this idea fantastical, confess that they 
who entertain it are in the main earnest ; many of 
them are noble and even consecrated men. The 
idea sums up all that they can anticipate of true 
and beautiful, of noble and excellent. The coming 



258 VISIONS OF THE FUTURE. 

of the Christ is in their expectation the coming of 
liberty and light, of justice and charity, purity, 
beneficence, fellow feeling, kindness, all over the 
world. Their idea of the coming of Christ corre- 
sponds with our idea of the inauguration of a per- 
fected humanity. 

Let us now contrast in two or three sharply de- 
fined points this old vision of the future with 
such a vision of the future as reasonable people 
may feel encouraged to entertain to-day. In the 
first place the old idea, the christian idea, is fan- 
ciful, both as to its basis and its character. The 
modern idea is rational in basis and in character. 
The christian expectation rests on texts of scrip- 
ture, on texts of scripture only, not on observation. 
All observation is against it. Not an experience 
justifies it. All experience is against it. The 
course of history from the beginning runs the other 
way. The belief rests on scripture texts from the 
old testament and the new. The texts are very 
plain. There are a great many of them ; they 
came from pens popularly supposed to have been 
directed by the Holy Spirit, and held by inspired 
men ; still they are only texts. Suppose the texts 
to have been written in books of unquestioned 
genuineness and established authenticity, as they 
are not, for the so called sacred writings have been 
riddled with criticism, — suppose the declarations in 



VISIONS OF THE FUTURE. 259 

question to have fallen without a possibility of 
doubt from the lips of Jesus himself, we should be 
constrained to believe in that case that he was mis- 
taken, not that they were true or credible. 

No texts, no accumulations of texts, will estab- 
lish a point which all experience is against, which 
all reason refutes. Literary statements are only 
literary facts. Yet this is the sole basis of the 
popular christian expectation. It cites no other; 
it suggests no other; it asks no other. 

The basis of the rational expectation is what all 
the world calls fact, as opposed to fancy ; it is ob- 
servation, experience of life. There is a profound 
saying in the writings of Paul to this effect: 
" Tribulation worketh patience, and patience ex- 
perience, and experience hope, and the hope will 
not be put to shame." Analyze this statement. 
Tribulation, that is wear and tear, the friction of 
nature and life, the stress and strain, the rolling and 
tumbling as of stones upon the beach, pounded and 
tusseled by the waves, the incessant trituration of 
suffering, sorrow, and sin ; this is the tribulation 
that worketh patience. Patience is the power to 
stand firm, to endure and suffer, the power to bear 
up under heavy weight, to grow strong under pres- 
sure of circumstances, becoming solid from resist- 
ance to superincumbent burdens. Patience, in its 
turn, begets experience, the fixed possession of 



260 VISIONS OF THE FUTURE. 

character. We speak of the experimental- sciences ; 
—they are properly the only sciences, knowledges, 
there are, being the result of experiment, of trial, 
the ultimate acquisition. The result of all this last 
effort is hope. Men speak of hope as if it was some 
visionary fantastical thing, the perfume of the rose, 
the color of the lily, the hue of a cloud at sunset ; 
the light of a star, the sparkle of a beam of light 
on; a polished surface, — something that passes, is 
evanescent. It is on the contrary, the culmination 
of; all that is profoundest in experience. It is the 
last result of the suffering, the pain, the tribulation 
of the ages. It is the final product of all the past. 
Itjis the silvery cap of the Jungfrau, which catches 
the first beam of the sunrise, and the last flush of 
the dying day, and in the moonlight shines like a 
star, because it has beneath it the chain of the Alps, 
Wjhose roots fasten upon the core of the globe. 

Thus, while on the strength of a few texts the 
christian believer has a vision of the future coming 
of the Christ, on the strength of man's experience, 
his observation of the world, his study of history, 
his knowledge of the laws of nature, the rational 
man has a vision which dwarfs the other into noth- 
ing ; a vision of a new heaven, where all is order 
and peace, regularity, harmony, serenity ; a vision 
of a new earth, whose rain drops are counted, whose 
very storms are made tributary to peace, whose 



VISIONS OF THE FUTURE. 261 

winds are chained to chariots which convey myriads 
across the continent, whose mountains are leveled, 
whose oceans are made tractable to steamships, 
whose rivers are bridged, whose lightning carries 
messages from realm to realm ; visions of a new 
society, emancipated from idle fears and supersti- 
tions and terrors; a society, intelligent, instructed, 
master of the conditions of prosperous life, temper- 
ate, reasonable, pure, self-restrained, using gifts, not 
abusing them, not wasting, but employing the op- 
portunities so prodigally supplied ; the vision of a 
new humanity, where all conspire together to make 
the world better than it is, to promote justice, 
establish truth, make sympathy, kindness, love, the 
law upon which men live and work ; the vision of a 
new intellectual world, where there will be no more 
sects or schools, no more disputations, or con- 
troversies, when men in a scientific, philosophical 
temper, shall study truth together, in the spirit of 
earnest seeking; where there shall be no more 
quarrel between those who have little and those 
who have much wisdom, but where the wise and 
the foolish, the intelligent and the simple, shall 
combine their acquisitions for general service. 

To present in further contrast the character of 
the new hope, as distinguished from the old, — 
the rational man has a vision of a spiritual future 
when the word religion shall be more than the 



262 VISIONS OF THE FUTURE. 

word Christianity ; when faith shall be more than 
churches or creeds ; when no more shall be heard 
of Romanism or Anglicanism or Protestantism ; 
when Baptists, Methodists, Unitarians and Ration- 
alists shall acknowledge each other's peculiarity, 
shall be glad of each other's prosperity, shall emu- 
late each other in the pursuit of humane ends. 
Contrast these two conceptions thus presented. 
Can anyone who places them candidly before him, 
doubt which of the two is the more excellent, 
which has the firmer basis, which the nobler aspect? 
Present the two in another contrast, as to the 
respective methods by which the grand culmination 
is to be brought about. The christian method of 
realizing the future proceeds according to the rule 
of revolution. I say the christian vision of the future 
works by the method of revolution. The zealots 
of the time of Jesus anticipated a complete over- 
turning of the political and social institutions of 
the earth. Jesus himself in the twenty-fourth chap- 
ter of Matthew, in which he is brought forward as 
describing the catastrophe which is impending, 
speaks of " wars and rumors of wars, nations ris- 
ing against nation, kingdom being arrayed against 
kingdom, famines, pestilences and earthquakes in 
diverse places," fears, hatreds, tribulations, such as 
the world has never seen ; sudden overthrow of 
everything that existed, so sudden that of two 



VISIONS OF THE FUTURE. 263 

men working together in the field one should be 
taken and the other left ; of two women grinding 
at the mill, one should be taken and the other left; 
the man enjoying a siesta on the roof-top would 
not have time to come down ; so instantaneous 
would be the coming of the kingdom that he 
could not gather up his clothes. So sudden will be 
the calamity that the man in the city will have not 
time to advertise his brother in the field ; the man 
in the field will have no time to return to the city 
for his goods. St. Paul, no less, though after an- 
other fashion, expected revolution. The managers 
of the recent Prophetic Conference believed in 
revolution. When men say that all the good 
people of the world are to be suddenly taken out 
by supernatural interposition ; that the world is to 
be allowed then to run on in its evil course on the 
strength of its ignorance, vice, superstition and evil, 
they affirm the approach of revolution, a violent 
interference with the natural order of society. The 
silence of the process does not affect its character. 

Contrast this with the even method of evolution 
which holds that every cause has its effect, that 
every effect has its cause, that the condition of 
things at any one time corresponds exactly to the 
condition of things that went before ; that the 
world goes on quietly, steadily, from step to step, 
one phase introducing another, the movement never 



264 VISIONS OF THE FUTURE. 

resting, never hasting, proceeding with no leap, no 
interval, no chasm, but with serene onward march. 
This is the idea of evolution. The world is as good 
as it ought to be, considering what the past has 
been. We have gone as far as could be expected. 
In this view the good and the bad must share for- 
tunes together. None are perfectly good. None are 
wholly bad. All good people have the seeds of 
evil in them. All bad people have in them the 
seeds of good, and the exigencies of progress de- 
mand that the wise and the foolish, the educated 
and the simple, the accomplished and the ignorant 
should be thrown together in mutual co-operation 
and sympathy. 

Once more, contrast the christian with the ration- 
al view in another respect. The christian theory 
assumes the supernatural. The rational theory dis- 
believes in the supernatural ; its faith is in the 
natural. The christian theory, I repeat, assumes 
the action of supernatural forces. The idea of the 
supernatural force comes in at every point. It is 
fundamental. Without the supposition of a power 
breaking in upon the world, the whole theory falls 
to the ground. 

The most energetic party at the time of Jesus be- 
lieved that the Messiah was to be, though a man, 
not a mere man, but a superhuman being, divinely 
commissioned and endowed, gifted with powers 



VISIONS OF THE FUTURE. 265 

capable of holding in suspense the laws of nature, 
miracle working powers. The disciples of Jesus 
claimed that he was more than man. He claimed 
something of the kind for himself. He had no 
doubt that he was to come in the clouds, with a 
host of angels, heralded by a great sound of a 
trumpet. There was to be war in the heavens. 
No created man was to pronounce the final judg- 
ment ; even the Christ was not a deputy with full 
powers ; Jehovah alone, coming by his own im- 
mediate messengers and agents, was to complete 
the work. But the Christ was necessary. This 
was the idea prevalent in the Apocalypse. This was 
the idea of Paul. This is the idea of believers in 
the second coming of the Lord. They have no 
confidence in the unassisted power of man. 

This belief in the supernatural pre-supposes dis- 
belief in the progressive advance of mankind. But, 
as we become better acquainted with history, as we 
study more closely 'the relations of man to man in 
the past, one thing seems absolutely certain, namely, 
that the enormous changes that have been wrought 
in the globe, the improvements that have been 
made in the condition of mankind, the achievments, 
material, social, moral are due to man, to natural 
industry, forethought, prudence, endeavor, earnest- 
ness, enlightenment. Nothing has been done that 
man has not done. The very imperfection of the 



266 VISIONS OF THE FUTURE. 

work attests the workman. No more justice has 
been applied to human relations than a half taught 
conscience has exercised. There has been no more 
kindness, sweetness, sympathy than was possible to 
a passionate, self absorbed heart ; no more energy 
than was actually incorporated in an unsteady will. 
All the immense achievements of the ages have 
been executed consciously or unconsciously by 
human agencies without helping interposition from 
the supernatural world. This is the presumption, 
and it is a reasonable one. If it were not so, how 
comes it that the state of man is no better? If we 
have the immediate benefit of helping angels, how 
comes it that we are so sorely needing help ? If a 
saving Christ, a loving, omnipotent God, is content 
to leave us as we are, then I think one may be 
allowed to doubt either the omnipotence or the 
kindness. 

The doctrine of evolution, of a gradual, slow, 
silent progress of the world, is the only doctrine 
that accounts simply for the pain, the ignorance, 
the meanness, the infirmity and the sin of the 
world, as it is. 

One more point in conclusion. I contrast the 
christian expectation with the rational expectation, 
on the ground that one is partial and the other 
universal. The christian dream of the future is a 
dream that only christians can entertain, a dream 



VISIONS OF THE FUTURE. 267 

that portends felicity within the bounds of Christen- 
dom, and to Christendom only. Interpret Christen- 
dom as generously as you will, as largely and 
broadly as your catholicity may prompt, say that 
the hope is not for those only who believe alike, 
but for all who feel, aspire, love alike. It is at all 
events under some form of limitation ; it is for the 
exclusive benefit of those who are Christians, not 
therefore for Jews, not for pagans, not for the in- 
fidel, the doubting, faltering, cold hearted ; unless 
these become evangelical Christians, according to 
some definition, there is no promise or hope for 
them. Stretch the hope as widely as you will, it 
stops at the confines of Christendom. The reason- 
able hope, on the other hand, is for all mankind 
alike, for one as much as another, for the believer 
and the unbeliever, the philosopher and for the boor, 
the saint and the sinner ; for all who work together, 
hold together, live and suffer together. It is simply 
impossible that in a world like this, where all are 
necessary to each, and each is necessary to all, the 
outcome should not benefit all. Therefore in this 
one point, were there no other, the case would be 
decisive against the christian idea. 

One point remains, that cannot be discussed, that 
cannot be dwelt upon or more than touched upon, 
the point whether this glorious vision of the future is 
to be entertained by the individual man or woman, 



268 VISIONS OF THE FUTURE. 

whether it is a vision for the person as well as a 
vision for the race. That the human race can en- 
tertain this great expectation is no longer matter of 
doubt. Whether I can for myself, whether you can 
for yourself, we may not say. The future is wrapped 
in cloud and uncertainty. Undoubtedly in any par- 
ticular generation there are few if any who do not 
share more or less directly in the benefits that accrue 
to that generation : but whether in the grand con- 
sumation of ages the individual person will be a par- 
taker in the ultimate felicity, must be left to conjec- 
ture. 

This is that old problem of immortality which 
comes home to every one of us, and is at times of 
the most vital and uttermost concern. When Ave 
feel the want and misery of life, the disappointment, 
the weakness, the suffering of existence, we would 
fain have present assurance. But we have to bow 
our head and wait. 

I cannot discuss that here. . Let me, however, in 
conclusion say a single word, that so far as expecta- 
tion of immortality is selfish, in so far as it turns up- 
on the expectation of private felicity, it is not gen- 
erous, it is not noble, it is not becoming for those 
who call themselves human beings, and consequently 
it is not reasonable. Only in proportion as we put 
selfishness away, as we forget the teazing claims 
of individuality, lose the exorbitant sense of per- 



VISIONS OF THE FUTURE. 269 

sonal right to happiness, only, that is, in so far as we 
cherish human sympathy, a large and generous fel- 
low feeling with our kind, are we happy, noble, or 
excellent. Only in so far as we cultivate these 
universal sentiments shall we be prepared to enter 
into any heaven that may be offered to us. 



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